Lord Nelson’s Traumatic Brain Injury

Lord Horatio Nelson was England’s most celebrated soldier, the Admiral who defeated Napoleon’s navy at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805. He was a brilliant, brave and admired naval strategist and warrior. Sadly, Nelson fell from a shot fired from the enemy ship Redoutable, and his amazing and heroic career came to an end. Despite his resounding victories, was his judgment impaired as a result of a severe concussion he had suffered in battle?

According to Esty and Shifflett (2014), Nelson likely suffered a significant brain injury in August 1798 at the Battle of the Nile when a piece of langridge struck his left forehead and rendered him unconscious. He commented on his impaired cognitive functioning in several letters he wrote at the time, and the letters clearly show impaired thinking and writing.

Following one of his battles, Nelson was nursed back to health by the beautiful Lady Hamilton. Nelson and Lady Hamilton had an affair which resulted in a daughter, Horatia being born. Nelson abandoned his wife and was very public about this affair which caused a huge scandal at the time. Always concerned about correct behavior, one must wonder if the frontal head injury impacted his executive functioning with respect to how he managed his personal affairs. At his final battle, Lord Nelson, despite warnings from his aide, insisted on wearing his admiral’s coat on deck when leading the battle from the front. He was a prime target for the French sniper who unleashed the fatal gunshot that tore through Nelson’s spine. Was Lord Nelson’s fatal decision of wearing his admiral’s coat that day again a residual of the closed head injury he sustained years earlier?

Despite multiple injuries and disabilities over his career, Nelson had chosen to fight on, but at great cost. He was the epitome of his own saying that “England expects each man to do his duty.”

Traumatic brain injury has been referred to as a silent epidemic. Some cases of ADD and ADHD have been found upon history to be positive for closed head injury. A CDC study found that one in five people suffer from dyslexia to some degree. Might many cases of dyslexia also have a positive history for closed head injury? Dr. Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist portrayed by Will Smith in the movie Concussion, recently said in his key note address to the Michigan Brain Injury Association that to allow children to play contact sports is child abuse due to the potential impact on the developing brain. We now have thousands of soldiers return from the wars with traumatic brain injuries, many undiagnosed and untreated.

We are at a turning point with respect to recognizing the impact of brain injuries. Advances in diagnosis, treatment and prevention are thankfully on the horizon. Much work remains to be done.