The physician's report might have gone something like this: "The patient, H., was perhaps the most powerful man in the world and, as such, enjoyed the best medical care available. Despite this, in his late 30s he became irrational and insecure and developed tyrannical tendencies. H.'s illness may have been responsible for the miscarriages and stillbirths suffered by two of his wives, who were both executed on H.'s orders."

King of England from the age of 17, Henry VIII died in 1547, after growing obese and ever more demented. He spent the last eight days of his life in bed, too weak even to lift a glass of water. According to a contemporary account, his deathbed stank of his bursting leg ulcers.

The descriptions of his illness and behavior led several doctor-historians to retro-diagnose Henry VIII as suffering from syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum. Specifically, it is thought that the king died from tertiary neurosyphilis, which develops when the bacterium spreads to the central nervous system. Syphilis in the brain would account, at least, for his dementia.