[Vwoolf] Woolf bio.

[Mary Ellen Foley]

Intriguing, but porphyria was well-understood at the time, and has other
symptoms. GIven how assiduously (I won't say obsessively) her husband
documented her symptoms, it's hard to believe he wouldn't have mentioned
the other ones, and it's hard to believe that multiple doctors would have
missed the dark urine, etc.  WIthout hearing the whole case, and finding
that it explains other triggers (bereavement, conclusion of large creative
projects), I remain to be convinced.

If Woolf didn't drink wine, I'm not aware of it, but there's a lot of
material out there and my memory isn't what it might be.  The pregnancy
angle, though, is not persuasive, as she was never pregnant; I don't think
that relying on the fact that the doctor advised her not to become
pregnant, is safe.  That Woolf, who scrutinized her health so closely, and
whose husband scrutinized her health so closely, could fail to mention that
the warning against pregnancy was because doctors suspected porphyria seems
very odd, and not in agreement with her later writing that if she'd had
better self-control, they could have had children.  I realize that your
point is that her (potential) porphyria went undiagnosed, but the point
about pregnancy assumes that the porphyria was the cause for the warning,
in which case there was a diagnosis, and neither Woolf ever put that on
paper.

Would be interested to hear more of the argument, though--

Mary Ellen


On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 1:13 PM, <omolly at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> I'm up to here with Woolf's biography. Years ago a physician asked, in the
> VW Quarterly, what about porphyria. Indeed, I believe she inherited acute
> intermittent porphyria and all the associated symptoms. Best therapy is a
> high carbohydrate diet. Surest way to bring on an attack is to get
> pregnant. Psychiatric manifestations are familiar-- hallucinations. Coma
> has a way of ending things. Seems to be coordinated with menstrual periods.
> Barbiturates and wine are contraindicated. Onset after puberty. Depression
> is frequent. Comments? Molly Hoff
> _______________________________________________
> Vwoolf mailing list
> Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
> https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osu.edu/pipermail/vwoolf/attachments/20150911/6c26ac52/attachment-0001.html>