Astronomer suffered horror death after bladder burst during dinner with royals

A famed astronomer suffered a horrifying death after his bladder burst during a decadent feast – stopping him from urinating and leaving him in agony.

Tycho Brahe, famed for charting the heavens with unmatched precision long before the telescope, was dining in October 1601 at the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. According to eyewitness accounts, his famously strict table manners would not allow him to leave the feast for a “natural break.” Hours later he was doubled over in pain, his bladder unable to empty.

After returning home, Brahe suffered days of intense agony. Reports from his assistants describe him becoming feverish and delirious while unable to pass urine — a condition now thought to have been either a burst bladder or a severe urological infection. His final hours were spent repeatedly begging that he had not lived in vain, telling his student Johannes Kepler to preserve his life’s astronomical work.

Rumours soon swirled around Prague. Some claimed he had been poisoned, while others blamed the exotic medicines he took. In 2010 and 2012, scientists exhumed Brahe’s body to settle the speculation. The results were clear – there were no lethal levels of mercury in his remains, eliminating poisoning theories and supporting the long-accepted account of fatal bladder or kidney failure.

His vast astronomical observations – the most accurate ever made before the age of telescopes – were passed on Kepler, who used them to uncover the laws of planetary motion. His genius was also tinged with eccentricity – Brahe lost the bridge of his nose during a duel after having a drunken argument with his cousin over who was the better mathematician. He then created replacements from metals including brass and silver, securing them with paste.

At his castle, he also supposedly kept an elk that died after drinking too much beer and falling down the stairs. After exhuming his skeleton, archaeologists found that Brahe was obese and had consumed more meat and fish than the average person at that time. They also found evidence of bone changes consistent with a condition known as diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), which can fuse two or more vertebrae, Forbes reported.

The team said: “Whereas it is most likely that DISH represented only a minor inconvenience for Tycho Brahe and did not have any relevant impact on his daily life and health status, some co-morbidities of the condition, if present, could have been life-threatening and may have played some role in the sudden illness he suffered at the end of his life.” – mirror.co.uk

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