From The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 1799 Foto Studio Saporetti / Archivio Foto Studio Saporetti / Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

Could a rare autoimmune disease have left Francisco de Goya deaf for the second half of his life? Often referred to as the father of modern art, Goya was struck by a mysterious illness in the 1790s, and his work became increasingly dark during the later years of his career.

In the autumn of 1792, when he was 46, Goya fell ill with what physicians described as colic. The following winter, he was bedridden with a mysterious illness. It took him nearly two years to recover, and he was left deaf for the rest of his life.

Now Ronna Hertzano, a hearing specialist at the University of Maryland, is attempting to get to the bottom of this illness. Every year, the Historical Clinicopathological Conference challenges a doctor to diagnose the ailments of a mystery patient, and previous meetings have focused on figures such as Charles Darwin.


Ahead of this year’s conference, Hertzano was given details about Goya’s condition without being told his identity, and asked to come up with a diagnosis. Letters from friends show that Goya – then a renowned portraitist patronised by the royal court – complained of buzzing in his ears before he went deaf.

He also had difficulty maintaining his balance, writing that he could not go up or down stairs without feeling like he would fall, says Hertzano, who now knows the historical patient’s identity, and will present her findings at the meeting in Maryland tomorrow.

Hallucinations and paralysis

Goya reported difficulty seeing and severe headaches, and while he was bedridden he had hallucinations and episodic paralysis. In 1795, he wrote to the Royal Academy of San Fernando saying he wouldn’t be able to teach there any more because he could no longer hear what they were saying, says Janis Tomlinson, an art historian at the University of Delaware.

Because Goya lost hearing in both ears, Hertzano says it’s most likely the disease spread to the ears from the brain. Infections like meningitis or syphilis can do this, but they don’t fit his case exactly.

From Out Hunting for Teeth, 1799 Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images

“You would expect syphilis over the course of many years to show some progressive neurological symptoms or dementia, which were not at all reported to be part of our artist’s life,” Hertzano says. And at the time, there were no antibiotics, she says, so surviving bacterial meningitis would probably have been rare.

Lead exposure can cause “colic” and deafness, and Goya is known to have used an excessive amount of lead white paint. But Hertzano has ruled out lead poisoning, because aside from his lasting deafness, Goya went on to recover from his other symptoms.

Instead, Hertzano suspects a rare autoimmune condition called Susac’s syndrome, which is characterised by hallucinations, paralysis and hearing loss – all of which Goya had.

Ghosts and witches

Susac’s syndrome is caused by the immune system attacking the linings of small blood vessels. Resulting inflammation in the brain can cause headaches and hallucinations, while damage to the blood supply to the eyes and ears can lead to visual changes and deafness. The condition usually lasts for around one to three years.

Goya survived his illness and in 1799 published a collection of 80 etchings depicting ghosts, witches and nightmarish visions. But Tomlinson says that Goya’s darker work wasn’t likely to be a result of his ailments. “His contemporaries wouldn’t have understood [this work] as dark and the workings of a depressed mind,” Tomlinson says. “They would have seen it as a satire of superstitions of the day.”

Goya continued to paint portraits of Madrid society too, and was made a first court painter, the highest title he could achieve. Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808 would have been a more likely turning point in his life, says Tomlinson.

Had he been alive today, Hertzano says Goya would have received immune modulation drugs for Susac’s syndrome. But if the treatments failed, he still could have ended up deaf – unless he decided to receive a cochlear implant. “It’s a very simple procedure and with some minimal training, it would have restored his ability to understand speech to a great extent,” says Hertzano.

Read more: What killed Charles Darwin?

When this article was first published, it misstated the date of Goya's letter to the Royal Academy of San Fernando.