[Rheumatism and art : Max Slevogt. The bon viveur and artist plagued by gout]

The painter Max Slevogt (1868-1932), together with Lovis Corinth and Max Liebermann, was one of the most important representatives of German impressionism. Slevogt, a gourmet who appreciated fine food and good wines, suffered from acute recurrent gouty arthritis starting at the age of 27 years. His medical history is reconstructed for the first time from the published and previously unpublished letters of his doctor János Plesch. After gout attacks at longer intervals in the first years of the disease, the attacks increased and from 1917 onwards were manifested in 1-2-year intervals with no evidence of a chronic gouty arthritis. Many of his attacks of gouty arthritis are illustrated by drawings that document the involvement of the feet and knees. Slevogt usually treated the gout attacks with bed rest, which prevented him from painting. He used a drug treatment with Colchicum only rarely. Dietary measures, a health cure for weight loss and multiple spa treatments in the last years of life at annual intervals, were among the other treatment modalities. The gout and heavy smoking resulted in coronary heart disease from which he died shortly before his 65th birthday.