[The Annette von Droste-Hülshoff syndrome]

In the past, physicians interested in the great poetess Annette von Droste-Hülshoff argued as to whether she suffered from chronic tuberculosis or Graves' disease. We can now explain her physical appearance without any difficulty, thanks to our knowledge of the oculopathy of prematurity. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff was a premature infant delivered in the seventh or eighth month, and there is no doubt that she suffered from severe myopia and myopic exophthalmos. Moreover, she had a divergent pseudosquint, as can be seen in some portraits of her; this was very probably caused by a dragged disc or dragged retina (i.e., displacement of the macula). The increasing number of outstanding talents seen among premature infants, who now grow up thanks to the incubator, reminds us that Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's vast knowledge and her poetic genius were an expression of her prematurity, which is documented in biographies and by cryptic autobiographical evidence.