Buried Alive?

There has been a lot of speculation over the centuries concerning the death of Alexander the Great (d.323 BC), perhaps the world’s most successful lgbt emperor. In recent years the question has centred round the possibility that he may have been buried alive. The truth is much more horrific.

The manner and cause of Alexander’s death have been theorised for centuries based on the few records that have survived. One popularly believed cause of death can be dismissed immediately. Alexander did not died from intense grief after the death of his lover Hephaestion in 324BC. He showed no signs of grief in the days before his death. In fact he partied for days, as he often did before and after Hephaestion died.

The historical accounts don’t tell us very much, or at least not enough for us to name a definitive cause of death. The symptoms recorded in the decades and centuries after his death have been interpreted as being due to many different ailments. Here is a short list of those that have been suggested: liver disease caused by alcoholism, typhoid, malaria, pancreatitis, leukaemia, arsenic poisoning, and strychnine poisoning (these last two suggesting murder).

One particularly rare condition which was suggested is Guillain-Barré Syndrome, or GBS. This is a condition that affects the nervous system. It causes a gradual paralysis of muscles and very often reduces the heart rate and breathing.

I think the first suggestion that Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) may have played a part in Alexander’s death came in a paper called “A Mysterious Death” presented to the Historical Clinopathological Conference 1996 at the University of Maryland. Its authors, three doctors at the university and one from Pennsylvania State University, suggested that Alexander died of typhoid “complicated by bowel perforation and ascending paralysis”. They interpreted this paralysis as a symptom of GBS. They didn’t say explicitly that GBS was responsible for Alexander’s death, but it was enough for others to latch on to and develop the suggestion further.

What later commentators have theorised is that because GBS causes paralysis Alexander the Great was still alive when he was examined by his physicians and pronounced dead.

In ancient times physicians didn’t know about the circulation of blood and didn’t check anyone’s pulse to see if they were alive. They relied on a person’s breathing, and GBS slows down the breathing rate to a point where it is virtually undetectable. Naturally, this has led to sensationalised click-baiting headlines across the media (like those shown below, and, I suppose, the title I gave above!) saying that Alexander was buried alive. This is not the case, but one implication of the GBS diagnosis means that Alexander suffered from what I think is a worse fate.

There are no surviving documents form Alexander’s time that tell us exactly how he died or what he died from. But there are fragments of the Ephemerides of Alexander, which are royal journals written at the time. These formed the basis of later biographies of Alexander by writers such as the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, and the Greek philosopher Plutarch, both of the 1st century.

Quintus Curtius Rufus describes how Alexander’s body didn’t start to putrefy for six days despite the heat of the Mesopotamian summer (Alexander died in Babylon). Plutarch writes that embalmers were brought from Egypt to preserve Alexander’s body while preparations were made for his burial in Egypt. The embalmers, who arrived six days after the emperor’s death, remarked how lifelike his body still appeared. So, if Alexander did suffer from GBS brought on by something like typhoid he may have been conscious for most of those 6 days.

I hope for his sake that he wasn’t, because I’m sure you’re aware of the methods Egyptians used to embalm bodies. The body was drained of blood, the brain was pulled out of the skull through the nose, and the lungs, stomach, liver and intestines were cut out. Then the body was placed in a salt called nitron for 40 days to remove all moisture, and then wrapped in bandages. Imagine being fully conscious and unable to move or speak as you experienced your blood being drained from your body.

Another ancient story says that Alexander’s body was preserved in honey until it could be buried. This implies that Alexander, if he had GBS and was still alive, drowned in honey.

But this is all speculation. No-one has come up with proof of the exact cause of Alexander’s death, and without examination of his bodily remains (which haven’t been found) we probably never will. All we can say after thinking about what could have happened is Rest In Peace.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 25) Friends and Betrayal

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 68) Bruce Voeller (1934-1994) was the person credited with coming up with the name “AIDS”, and names form the basis of the AIDS Memorial Quilt created by 69) Cleve Jones (b.1954), for which many companies have raised funds, including South African wine companies, one of which is owned by 70) Gerard Holden (b.1964), while another is located on the site of a leper hospital were 71) Dr. James Barry (c.1795-1865) worked.

After over 40 years service in the British army as a pioneering surgeon 71) Dr. James Barry retired to London where he died. His body was laid out in preparation for burial by a woman called Sophia Bishop. It was she discovered that James Barry was physically female and had successfully hidden this secret from the army for decades. When Sophia was refused payment for her services she took the secret to the press.

The revelation that one of the most revered army surgeons was born a woman caused quite a stir. The army were so embarrassed that they tried to suppress James Barry’s military records for a hundred years. Their attempt failed and the world got to know James Barry’s secret.

James Barry was baptised Margaret Ann Bulkey in Ireland. From adulthood he lived as a man. This suited James’ father who managed to enrol him into Edinburgh University as a medical student in 1809. Women were not allowed to study medicine in those days.

James qualified as a doctor in 1812 and enlisted into the army a year later. He rose very quickly to become Assistant Surgeon to the Forces in 1815. This position gave James the chance to travel the world. His first posting was to Cape Province in South Africa where he became Colonial Medical Inspector. In this role he went to the leper hospital at Hermanus (the location of the present Hamilton Russell wine estate) and immediately set about improving health care and hygiene practices.

James had a reputation for voicing his opposition to many established medical practices wherever he went. He even had a big row with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War over hygiene (she then stole his ideas and passed them off as her own).

By the time of his death James Barry was well-known and respected, and all because his father enrolled him into Edinburgh University all those decades earlier. Others also kept his gender a secret. One of the family friends was a Venezuelan revolutionary called Francisco de Miranda. The original plan may have been for James to act as governess to Miranda’s children, perhaps in Venezuela, before he made his decision to become a doctor. James wouldn’t have become such a famous figure in the medical world if he had gone to Venezuela because South America was in a state of turmoil as colonies began revolting against their Spanish and Napoleonic rulers. Francisco de Miranda laid the foundations for the liberation of much of South America, assisted by compatriot revolutionaries such as a Simón Bolivar and 72) Carlos de Montúfar (1780-1816).

Carlos’s relationship with the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt is mentioned here. After he and Humboldt went their separate ways Carlos entered the Spanish army and fought in several battles against the Napoleonic French. In 1810 he sailed back to his native Ecuador, a Spanish colonial province then called the Quito Audiencia. There he joined the independence movement with his father, the Marques de Selva Alegre.

In 1812 independence was declared under the name of the Autonomous Government of Quito with Carlos’s father as President. However, a few months later Spanish loyalist troops took Quito city and the revolutionary government, including Carlos de Montúfar, fled. Eventually Carlos joined Simón Bolivar in his independence campaigns in Colombia but was captured at the Battle of the Cuchilla de Tambo in June 1816. The following month he was executed.

Simón Bolivar went on to become the big hero of South American independence, even having the country Bolivia named after him, of course. Strangely, Bolivia attracted many German settlers. Their descendants are recognised as a separate ethnic community to this day.

In the 1920s Bolivia decided to call upon Germany to help them reorganise their army. One of the military instructors that was sent was 73) Ernst Röhm (1887-1934), one of Adolf Hitler’s close friends.

Ernst arrived in Bolivia in January 1929. He was disappointed that a recent conflict with Paraguay has been resolved before he arrived and he was often at odds with his commanding officer, Gen. Hans Kundt. Shortly after his arrival a coup supported by Kundt deposed the Bolivian president. Ernst was rumoured that the new president had chosen him to replace Kundt, but before that could happen Ernst received a letter from Hitler ordering him to return to Germany. If only he had stayed in Bolivia.

What attracted Ernst back was the promise of becoming Chief of Staff of the SA (Sturmabteilung, the Storm Battalion, known as the Brown Shirts), the Nazi’s paramilitary wing which Ernst had helped to found in 1921. By 1934 the general reputation of the SA had deteriorated to the status of armed thugs and Hitler decided to scale back its powers.

Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, the Chief of the SS Security Service, fabricated documents against Ernst Röhm, suggesting that the SA were planning to overthrow Hitler. Most of this evidence centred on the alleged activities of the many known gay members of the SA. Hitler knew Ernst was gay and was at first reluctant to believe the evidence. What resulted was the “Night of the Long Knives”, a pivotal event in the history of the rise of Hitler.

On 30th June 1934 Hitler and SS troops arrested Ernst Röhm and the SA leaders in a surprise attack. After some procrastination Hitler ordered the execution of Ernst two days later. Following the Night of the Long Knives Hitler strengthened Paragraph 175, the law criminalising homosexuality, and Hitler assumed more power.

Reinhard Heydrich, the co-author of the fake documents, became Protector of Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia (modern-day Czech Republic). Czech rebels murdered Heydrich in 1942 and Hitler retaliated by ordering the execution of every man in the village of Lidice, where he claimed the assassins had been harboured. The “Lidice Massacre” horrified the world. Some places still commemorate it to this day. One commemoration was a verse-play called “The Murder of Lidice” and it was written by 74) Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950).

Next time of “80 More Gays”: How a village was destroyed, how reputations were built, and how civilisations were revealed.

The Viral Olympics

Tomorrow I was hoping to settle down in front of the tv with a box of chocolates and a bottle of champagne to watch the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. We all know why I can’t, but that’s not going to stop me from bringing you several articles on the Olympics over the next few weeks.

Even though covid19 is the reason why the Olympics and Paralympics have been postponed this is not the first time that a virus has created some concern during the games. Here are some of the health scares that have effected the games over the years.During the current pandemic there has been a renewed awareness of the previous world pandemic, the 1918 outbreak of flu. This was a year that the Olympics were planned to be held in Berlin but, obviously, the First World War led to its cancellation so there was no effect on the athletes.

Flu threatened several later Olympics. In Nagano at the winter games of 1998 a major outbreak occurred which effected 900,000 people, including the wife of the Japanese Prime Minister. A Norwegian speed skater, who won the gold medal in the 1500 meters, had to pull out of the 1000 meter final because he caught flu. Flu outbreaks affected several other Olympics – Vancouver 2010, Beijing 2008, and Salt lake City 2002.

An outbreak of norovirus occurred at the 2018 PyeongChang winter games which effected 261 people. Most of these cases were reported before the games began and it was mainly security personnel who were infected. The military was brought in to cover them, and the games organisers increased hygiene facilities. Nevertheless, on 16th February, halfway through the games, two Swiss slopestyle skiers became infected and were isolated. Like covid19, the most serious cases of norovirus can be fatal, but the majority of patients recover. The two skiers both recovered enough to continue competing in the slopestyle finals alongside gay skier Gus Kenworthy two days later.

At the preceding summer Olympics in Rio 2016 you may remember the fuss about the diving pool being an alarming shade of green. But the biggest health threat was the growing zika virus epidemic. Even before the games began several athletes decided not to go to Rio. Thankfully, the zika virus didn’t make an impact on the Rio Olympics, again due to increased hygiene procedures and mosquito repellents (zika is mosquito transmitted).

One virus which has had the biggest effect on the lgbt community and the Olympics is HIV. At the Olympics themselves there was a bit of concern, retrospectively, surrounding the preliminary round of the men’s springboard competition at the 1988 Seoul summer Olympics. This was the well-known incident in which Greg Louganis, who was not openly gay at the time, hit his head on the diving board and bled in the pool. He had also just been diagnosed HIV+ but he didn’t reveal this publicly until 1995. There was a lot of media speculation about contamination but there’s no evidence that any diver suffered any ill effect from diving into the same pool when competition resumed.

The sport of figure skating has been particularly hard hit by HIV and AIDS. The first Olympian to die from an AIDS-related condition was actually a track and field athlete, Tom Waddell, the founder of the Gay Games, in 1987. He was followed two years later by Olympic figure skating champion of 1972, Ondrej Nepela.

Returning to the present pandemic we are thankful that no lgbt Olympian has yet died from covid19 (several non-lgbt former Olympians, sadly, have). The media has brought to light some covid19-related news concerning some athletes. The above-mentioned Gus Kenworthy has been helping to look after his 9-month-old nephew and 4-year-old niece after they became ill. They were both treated in Denver Children’s Hospital.

Fellow 2018 US Winter Olympic team-mate, ice hockey champion Meghan Duggan returned to her former school as a substitute physical education teacher after the serving teacher contracted the virus.

On those notes let’s look forward with heightened hope and eager anticipation for the return of the Olympics in 2021.

As far as my lgbt Olympic research goes perhaps it is best that the Tokyo games have been postponed. I’m so close to having 400 athletes on my list. Ten have been added this year so far (number 391, an equestrian 3-day eventer, was added three days ago). Perhaps, if the games had not been postponed, there would have been enough athletes coming out as lgbt in Tokyo that the magic number of 400 would have been reached anyway.

The trend since Atlanta 1996 has been for new openly lgbt athletes to made their debut at the Olympics. There are 16 athletes who have already competed in their first Olympic qualifying tournaments or achieved the required points or scores to qualify and half of them could have been selected. An additional 19 have had their qualification events postponed until next year. I’m confident that a year from now there’ll be over 100 openly lgbt Olympians competing in Tokyo and over 400 on the all-time list.

On a related topic, At the moment I’m continuing to list lgbt Paralympians, though I am thinking about moving away from the Paralympics to concentrate on the Olympics. I’m sure there’s someone out there with the enthusiasm to carry on the work.

In the absence of a full lgbt Olympian list I’ve updated some of the statistics and facts and these are shown below.

 

Quest For A Vaccine

2020 has turned into one of those historic years. The covid-19 pandemic has changed everyone’s life, and they may never be the same in our life time. The lgbt community has some insight into the impact of a sudden appearance of a deadly virus with the effects of HIV in the 1980s. What unites both pandemics is the search for a vaccine and a possible cure. One is also helping to treat the other.

While we hope a vaccine for covid-19 will be found we turn our attention today to the search for a vaccine for HIV and AIDS, because today is World AIDS Vaccine Day, or HIV Vaccine Awareness Day.

World AIDS Vaccine Day has its origin is a speech made by President Bill Clinton on this date in 1997. He was invited to give the speech at the graduation ceremony at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Clinton’s speech wasn’t solely about the search for an AIDS vaccine. The oft-quoted line within it which launched the World AIDS Vaccine Day is: “Only a truly effective, preventative HIV vaccine can limit and eventually eliminate the threat of AIDS.” A few moments later he continued: “Today, I’m pleased to announce the National Institute of Health will establish a new AIDS vaccine research center dedicated to this crusade. And next month at the Summit of the Industrialised Nations in Denver, I will enlist other nations to join us in a worldwide effort to find a vaccine to stop one of the world’s greatest killers.”

The new vaccine research centre, based mainly in Bethesda, Maryland, was set up shortly afterwards. At the Summit of the Eight (the G7 nations and the EU) in Denver in June a communique was released promising better international co-ordination and to provide resources to accelerate vaccine research.

The history of the search for an HIV vaccine is long and full of scientific terminology that I cannot do justice to here. Instead I’ll look at a couple of research programmes. Of course, the search began long before President Clinton’s speech.

HIV is a particularly tricky virus to develop a vaccine for because there are so many strains and it evolves so quickly. The HIV DNA sequence can even change within infected human cells. Early hopes for a vaccine were frequently dashed as trials proved to be ineffective. Scientists first estimated that one would be available within 5 years, and here we are nearly 40 years later without one.

One of the earliest hopes for a vaccine came from veterinary science. In 1969 Dr. William Jarrett, Professor Veterinary Pathology at Glasgow University, discovered a virus that causes cancer in cats. He called it FeLV (feline leukemia virus).

Over in the USA in the 1980s FeLV researchers noticed that some cats exhibited wasting symptoms that were being seen in gay men who had developed a new disease. For that reason Dr. Robert Gallo of the national Cancer Institute began looking at FeLV to see if there was a link to the human cases. Gallo discovered there was a human version of the virus which he named HTLV-III (human T-lymphotropic virus-III). After further research this name was abandoned in favour of HIV. Because Dr. Jarrett had developed a FeLV vaccine Dr. Gallo believed it could lead the way in developing an HIV vaccine. Tests and trials proved unsuccessful.

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) was formed in 1996, the year before President Clinton’s speech. It was set up following a meeting arranged by the Rockerfeller Foundation in 1994 in Bellagio, Italy, involved 24 of some of the leading authorities and researchers on HIV. The IAVI founder, Dr. Seth Berkley, states that vaccine research was not being funded adequately at the time. With the support of 70 organisations Berkley added his voice to President Clinton’s and was another influence on the communique from the Group of Eight Summit.

There have been many tests and trials over the years, and many different medical angles have been investigated. In 2018 I wrote about the possibility that cow cells could give scientists at IAVI a clue to finding one area of research.

Until a vaccine is developed the world must rely on prevention, treatment and drugs. Just two months ago HIV drugs began to be tested on volunteer covid-19 patients in the hope that they will ease the symptoms or even stop the virus from replicating.

With covid-19 dominating the way we love our lives at the moment lets hope that vaccines for both covid and HIV can emerge soon.

Olympic Alphabet : X is for ...

X AND Y CHROMOSOMES

Everyone has an X chromosome in every one of their body cells. Women have two. Occasionally they have a Y chromosome which is generally only found in men. His makes these women susceptible to the influence of this chromosome and its effects on the development of the creation of male hormones. It is this effect of hormones which we look at today.

The Rio Olympics has already been described as the most lgbt-friendly ever. A record 57 of the 59 known lgbt athletes competed openly during the games (two athletes have requested to remain anonymous for now). There have been at least three lgbt couples getting engaged as well as the first married couple, the Richardson-Walshes. A better review of Rio 2016 will appear after the Paralympics.

Among all the positive stories there has been several negative ones, but one is on-going. The inclusion of transgender, intersex athletes and women with high testosterone levels. It doesn’t matter how many X or Y chromosomes an athletes has there is still opposition to some female athletes being accepted into female competition. After the more subdued controversy around Caster Semenya’s inclusion in London 2012 she returned to the main pages in the press during Rio 2016. In several UK newspapers there have been banner headlines above a photo of Caster saying “Prove you’re a woman”. During the BBC’s coverage of the games, one of GB’s top ex-Olympians said this quite openly on several occasions on each day that Caster competed.

In my “Olympic Countdown” series in the run-up to London 2012 I wrote a brief outline of gender verification at the Olympic games. Since then there has been more controversies and revisions of verification policies.

There has never been any proof which shows that female athletes likes Caster Semenya with a condition called hyperandrogenism have any unfair advantage over other female athletes. Yet people accept that lgbt Olympian Brittney Griner has an unfair advantage over other female basketball players because she is taller. The same is true of Usain Bolt of course. He is taller and has longer legs that increases his stride further than others.

Hyperandrogenism is a genetic condition in which higher than normal levels of male hormones, androgens, are produced. Testosterone is just one of these hormones. The IOC and international sport has been struggling with the problem of how much is too much in a female athlete.

Just over a year ago the Court of Arbitration for Sport ordered the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to suspend all bans on female athletes with hyperandrogenism and high male hormone levels. They said, quite rightly, that there is no medical or physical evidence to prove that those with the condition have any advantage in sport.

The IAAF rules were formulated as a direct response to the success of South African athlete Caster Semenya in 2009. After the media fiasco of their media handling of that case the IAAF decided to allow Semenya to compete at the London 2012 Olympics. Other athletes, however, fared less well. The Indian athlete Dutee Chand was banned from the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow because of her hyperandrogenism. It was her solicitors who challenged the ban and took the case to the Court of Arbitration.

The IAAF cannot be blamed for making rules based on their incomplete knowledge of the medical condition because no-one knows enough. But the Court of Arbitration advised that a proper scientific study should be made to provide once and for all any proof that female athletes gain any advantage. Until then all bans are suspended.

It should also be made clear that athletes with hyperandrogenism do not necessarily identify themselves as lgbt. Dutee Chand certainly has not, though Caster Semenya is known to be in a same-sex union.

Based on the suspension of the bans on athletes the IOC produced a new set of guidelines in January this year. The rules set down a limit to the testosterone and other hormone levels it accepts when considering the inclusion of women athletes.

The new guidelines also included recommendations for transgender athletes. While no transgender athletes were known to compete in Rio 2016 there are several who could have taken part in Olympic trials and qualifying events.

Some of the media who contacted me for interviews during the Rio games seemed to think that these rules were a result of the high profile transgender news surrounding Caitlyn Jenner. They were unaware that the matter was being considered long before that.

As more research is carried out and the public understanding of the many gender and biological complexities of the human species improves we can only say we have the best regulations that current knowledge and science suggests. It is to be hoped that any regulation or ban will never prevent aspiring athletes with any gender condition from pursuing their Olympic dreams.