Purple Secret by John C.G. Rohl, Martin Warren & David Hunt ( Signed Copy – by all Three Authors)

Purple Secret reads like a historical detective novel, trying to uncover evidence of a secret debilitating genetic disease in the royal line of England, except it’s not fiction. The disease is porphyria, an incurable metabolic disorder of the blood that produces many highly unpleasant-sounding symptoms, including violent abdominal pain, neuropathy, skin lesions and rashes, dark red or blue urine, and mental disturbances. In the 1960’s the theory was first made that King George III, traditionally called “The Mad King” and long believed to have had some pretty deep psychiatric issues, actually suffered from porphyria, which could have caused all his symptoms. In this book the researchers painstakingly peruse every contemporary written record describing the King’s illnesses and compare them to the symptoms of porphyria, and make a fairly convincing argument that he had it.