[The epilepsy of Guadalupe Victoria]

Guadalupe Victoria, the first President of Mexico, passed away in 1843 uictim of an ailment that, at the time, was diagnosed as epilepsy. The clinical data and the pathologic findings, however, suggest the possibility that Victoria had an underlying disease that was responsible for the seizures that affected him. In this article I propose that Guadalupe Victoria had in fact Chagas Disease, and that he was infected with this parasitic malady while he lived in the tropical jungles of Veracruz, in eastern Mexico. Even though there aren't many published works regarding seizures secondary to chronic Chagas Disease, there are good descriptions of epileptic syndromes in patients with this infection. At the same time, the cardiac findings in Victoria's autopsy support the idea that he had some kind of cardiac pathology; in this case Chagasic dilated cardiomyopathy, which ultimately led to his death.