VICE PRESENTS THE PEOPLE'S LISTS
Excerpted from The Book of Lists #3, by Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky, and Irving Wallace
Primary source: Stephen Berger, Of Natural Causes: The Disease and Death of Just About Everybody. New York: Vantage Books, 1982
Illustrations by Laura Park
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ALFRED THE GREAT
(849–899)
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| As a very young man, King Alfred of Wessex expressed the wish that God would send him a disease that would suppress lust but would not deprive him of the ability to rule. Soon he became afflicted with hemorrhoids, and once, after a painful day out hunting on horseback, Alfred stopped at St. Neot’s shrine in Cornwall to pray for relief. |
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NIKOLAI GOGOL (1809–1852)
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| In 1831, the young Russian author wrote to his mother, “Suffering from hemorrhoids, I had the foolish idea that it was some other and more dangerous ailment. Later I learned that there was not one man in St. Petersburg free from this nuisance.” |
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| Lifelong overeating worsened his condition. |
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DAVID LIVINGSTONE
(1813–1873)
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| The African explorer and medical missionary suffered innumerable bouts of hemorrhoids. In 1864, he refused surgery to remove them because he feared he would be disabled and thus prevented from returning to Africa. Livingstone is the only famous person known to have died from hemorrhoids. |
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GERALD FORD
(1913–2006)
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| The 38th president of the US had always been athletic. Before earning his law degree at Yale University, he was a football and boxing coach there. But in later years, as hemorrhoids restricted his activities, Ford began finding less strenuous sports—such as golf—more to his liking. |
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TO BE CONTINUED
THE PEOPLE'S LISTS | 1 | 2 | >
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Oct 9, 2008 wrote:
they forgot napoleon! | | Anonymous, on Oct 9, 2008 wrote:
Oh but you can. | |
| soaked criminal, on Oct 5, 2008 wrote:
gerald ford rubbed red cocks on his face all day | | Anonymous, on Oct 4, 2008 wrote:
urgh it would not be nice to have to operate (clinical words are such bull ’cut into’) on piles, i wonder whether it being liz taylor sweetens the pill? doctors love it anyway. the whole medical profession is founded on a flow chart that ends in ’fiddle with the ass’ its a tautology. | | Anonymous, on Oct 4, 2008 wrote:
yeah but, no but | | Anonymous, on Oct 4, 2008 wrote:
But, indeed, you can. | | Anonymous, on Oct 4, 2008 wrote:
Alfred didn’t have haemorrhoids. The nature of his affliction was ’incogniti’. (De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi, 91). | | Anonymous, on Oct 4, 2008 wrote:
has it ever mattered if somebody starts a sentence with but or not, especially a publication that is not exactly formal? does anybody like talking to you? is it not hypocritical that you didn’t use a capital letter to start your sentence? christ | | Anonymous, on Oct 4, 2008 wrote:
you cannot start a sentence with the word "but". | | |
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