![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Felipe_V_de_Espana.jpg\")
<\/a>\nThe Manly King<\/em><\/p>\n
The King’s first serious mental breakdown occurred in 1717. He shut himself away for days, refusing to see anyone except the Queen, and only then when he required sexual intercourse. Philip complained to his doctors that he was being consumed by a fire from with in his stomach. His doctors examined him but found no sign of illness and advised that the King was suffering from delusions. By this time, Philip had convinced himself that he was dying in mortal sin. The King was aware of the history of mental instability on both sides of his family and arrived at the conclusion that he too was going mad and was unfit to govern. After seeking divine inspiration, he decided to pass over the reins of government to someone else before his mind went completely. In January 1724 the King of Spain, to the astonishment of every court in Europe, suddenly abdicated in favor of his seventeen-year-old son Louis I.<\/p>\n
After a reign of only eight months, however, Louis was suddenly dead from smallpox, naming his father as successor. King Philip V resumed the throne very reluctantly. Throughout his brief, eccentric retirement he had taken to dressing up as a humble Franciscan friar, but had otherwise managed to retain all the trappings of luxury he had enjoyed as King. As before, the burden of responsibility caused him to have a mental breakdown. Although only thirty-eight years old, Philip was stooped, shrunken and bowlegged, shambling around the palace like an octogenarian. The French ambassador reported back to Versailles that the Spanish King’s sexual addiction had wrecked his health and driven him to madness.<\/p>\n
By 1727 his mental state had deteriorated so completely that his second wife effectively took over the rule of Spain. King Philip refused to change his clothes and wandered around the palace clad only in filthy, stinking rags, his hair long and wild. He believed that his personal filthiness was the only thing holding him together and that he would die if he changed his clothes. He bit chunks out of his arms and hands, and through the night alternately screamed and sang. Philip took on a permanently vacant expression and lapsed into lethargy, hardly ever eating, lying motionless in his own excrement for days on end in complete silence. On July 9, 1746, His Catholic Majesty’s miserable life was brought to a\u00a0 abrupt end by a massive stroke.<\/p>\n
Culled from: Royal Babylon<\/a><\/p>\n Brundage was a prolific photographer of his Columbus Ohio Medical University. He documented the wards, nurses, and personnel of this Columbus hospital and took many photographs of dissection scenes over the years during his year career.<\/p>\n Culled from: Stiffs, Skulls & Skeletons<\/a><\/p>\n\nGhastly!<\/h3>\n
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\nDissected Head in a Soup Plate
\n<\/strong>Photographer & Dissector: Howard Brundage, Columbus, Ohio, circa 1910<\/p>\n\nAndersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!<\/h3>\n