“Cured yesterday of my Disease, I died last night of my Physician” : The Medical History of Duke Peter von Biron (1724–1800)

Abstract

Peter von Biron (1724–1800), the last Duke of Courland and Semigallia, lived and died in an era described as both the age of heroic medicine and the golden age of quackery. Drawing on three surviving documents from 1786 to 1800 – a medical consultation with William Cullen, a petition by the Hospitaller prior Adaukt Paul, and a consilium by two Prague physicians – this article reconstructs the medical history of Biron’s final fifteen years. Together, these sources illuminate the therapeutic culture of late eighteenth-century Europe and the wide spectrum of practitioners – from eminent academic physicians to monastic healers and irregulars – who attended a cosmopolitan nobleman inclined towards vigorous interventions rather than regimen or restraint.