Posted on 10/30/2007 8:30:21 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
LONDON (Reuters) - Karl Marx, who complained of excruciating boils, actually suffered from a chronic skin disease with known psychological effects that may well have influenced his writings, a British expert said on Tuesday.
Sam Shuster, professor of dermatology at the University of East Anglia, believes the revolutionary thinker had hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) in which the apocrine sweat glands -- found mainly in the armpits and groin -- become blocked and inflamed.
"In addition to reducing his ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem," said Shuster, who published his findings in the British Journal of Dermatology.
"This explains his self-loathing and alienation, a response reflected by the alienation Marx developed in his writing."
While HS is linked to boil-like lumps, the painful condition also causes more widespread infection, swelling, skin thickening and scarring.
It could also explain a number of Marx's other complaints, not previously linked, such as joint pain and a painful eye condition which often stopped him working.
Shuster based his diagnosis on an analysis of Marx's extensive correspondence, in which he wrote to friends about his health and described his skin lesions as "curs" and "swine".
"The bourgeoisie will remember my carbuncles until their dying day," Marx told Friedrich Engels in a letter from 1867.
Marx, who died in 1883, was one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th century and his radical writings formed the basis of modern communism.
So...what’s Hillary’s excuse for accepting this drivel?
I know she’s married to a boil.....
Liberals are miserable people.
Probably because the guy never bathed.
So Marx’s real legacy is...
“I’ve got aches and pains, so I’m going to make other people suffer!”
—if the S.O.B. hadn’t had Freidrich Engels’ money backing him , he’d have starved to death and never have been heard of-—
His carbuncles live on...in the form of Hillary, Fidel, Hugo, Kim Jong-Il...
Is this why commie hippies smell?
It prevented him from working.
I guess that explains why he plagiarized so much of his writing from Engels and a couple of others?
WARNING: not pretty
Big ankles.
Hot dog! I have a new tag line.
Workers of the world unite!
Just be sure there is no shortage... I seem to remember the USSR had some issue with toilet paper... Aaah.. living in a socialist utopia..
There was no such thing as D&D, Star Wars, or internet flamewars in Karl Marx’s day.
Just think of the horrors that could have been averted if there were.
Most of Marx’s “original” ideas were merely warmed over Hegel. Don’t get me started on the fact that his only contribution to the Communist Manifesto was to sign his name to it.
Talk about your PC crap turned upside down, Marx’s writings were due to his low self esteem and self loathing, because he felt bad? This is right out of the Lincoln was gay school of journalism. What’s next, Adam Smith had hemorrhoids which led to writing of the Wealth of Nations?
The dermatologist must be right, certainly the industrial revolution, Europe’s feudal traditions, and the Hegelian dialectic had only miniscule influence on Marx.
There were clear historical forces which led to the advent of Marxism/socialism/communism. To minimize them is to leave the door open for their return.
/rant off
Did the guy ever work? He neglected and abused his family, but had the time to hang out with his buddy Engels and write lengthy screeds about the plight of factory workers —even though he never set foot in a factory.
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