Abstract
After the Greek Independence (1830), the first King, Otto from the Wittelsbach dynasty (Bayer), was married to Amelia from the House of Oldenburg (1836). Their failure to produce an heir to the throne, eagerly expected by the people, contributed much to their abdication in 1862, as an additional factor at the general, opposition to their way of governing. The responsibility for the couples sterility became a matter of political controversies among their families, their countries and the other European thrones after the unsuccessful medical diagnoses and treatments of the most eminent Greek and German physicians. This paper examines their failure to continue the throne, the medical circumstances, and the historical and political consequences.
‘A crown prince acts as a soporific for revolutions, a royal newborn has the power to lull a whole nation’ writes one of the biographers of Otto, first King of Greece and second son of Ludwig I of Bavaria (House of Wittelsbach). After the 10-year War of Independence, the Greek people welcomed the 18-year-old King in 1833 and his bride Amelia (daughter of the Duke of Oldenburg) three years later. 1,2 The eagerly expected son of the couple Otto and Amelia never arrived and this absence contributed much to the expansion of popular discontent caused by their way of governing, which culminated in a vigorous antiroyalist struggle that resulted in the abdication of the first dynasty from the country in 1862. 3
The efforts for a child lasted as long as the queen's reproductive age permitted and the physicians of the Royal Court exhausted all therapeutic means they possessed, supported by their German colleagues. In 1953 the Professor of Gynaecology, Nicholaos Louros (1898–1986), published the medical correspondence between the Greek and German experts containing the results of examinations, the possible diagnoses and the therapeutic recommendations (Figure 1). 4 According to this source, Amelia suffered from hypersensitivity of the vagina caused by infantile genitalia (neoteny) or structural disorders of the womb. The physicians initially advised intercourse in a different position but the failure of this simple suggestion obliged them to suggest sponge therapy, aiming to decrease the unhealthy sensitivity. 3 The sponge should be inserted in the vagina by a midwife and remain inside for 24 hours. As this required rest and lack of excess motion, the physicians attributed the failure of the measure to her dancing, swimming and horse riding, and forbade them all temporarily (Figure 2). Amelia was said to be healthy, robust and athletic. As the queen was a ‘true Amazon’ and had visited the whole country, to the very last village, on horseback, she soon returned to her favourite habits. However, the German team of doctors insisted on the repetition of sponge therapy and explained the unsuccessful first appliance as brief and incorrect. 5 They also demanded warm baths at the famous European spas and Amelia, following their instructions, visited them several times for a curative purpose.
A picture accompanying a letter from Dr Bergelied (Germany) imaging the reproductive system of Amelia, after a clinical examination (1841)
Otto and Amelia on horseback
Amelia died in Bamberg in Bavaria at the age of 57. Soon after her death, rumour was spread through the European Royal Courts that Dr Viche who performed the autopsy (the official report was never found) discovered that she died a virgin. 5 The political interpretation of the new scandal attributed to her family a plot aiming to promote Otto's impotence. The two Royal Houses accused one another of the loss of the Greek throne. Indeed, some decades earlier the Greek Court doctors, acting in discretion, had examined Otto and had informed his father of a ‘small anatomical defect’ and this secret information had been sent to Clemens von Metternich (1773–1859), the Austrian Foreign Affairs Minister. 6 A war of impressions followed where Bavaria and its allies denied any physical defect or functional insufficiency in Otto, attributing all responsibilities to Amelia, while their opponents attempted to defend the Queen. Some contemporary medical historians hypothesize psychological factors for the couple's sterility or the existence of anatomical reasons including vaginal agenesis (Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome) for the Queen, although most researchers believe the problem is more complicated than a simple medical diagnosis and is part of conspiracy theory among the European Royal Courts. In any event, the second dynasty established in Greece in 1863, represented by King George I of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sondenburg-Glücksburg, who married the Russian princess Olga, niece of the Tsar and became the father of seven children, remained on the Greek throne until 1974. 7