The truth behind the 'jaw-dropping' disease haunted European royalty for 4 centuries

Royal - a concept that sounds very beautiful and romantic, right? It is possible, but in reality, the ancient royal families had a lot of instability problems, from how to rule to mysterious diseases that haunted them until they died.

The Habsburg family is one such case. For those who do not know, many kings and queens of Austria and Spain are members of this family. The Habsburgs even captured the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, between 1438 and 1740, meaning more than three centuries.

But at the same time, this family suffered from a syndrome so "toxic" and bizarre, that people even took their name for it: "Ham Habsburg" (Habsburg jaw) . Basically, this syndrome makes the structure of the jaw become extremely large, bulging the sides so absurdly wide, causing a lot of difficulty in eating. As the emperor Charles V (1500 - 1558) could not even eat publicly in front of people because of his monstrous mouth shape.

Philip IV (left) and Charles II (right).

Family members of generations have almost acquired it, regardless of whether it is male or female. The reason why this syndrome can follow them for a hundred years is still controversial. But now everything has been confirmed. New research has confirmed that the cause of the "Habsburg function" comes from the family's inbreeding that has lasted more than 200 years.

Princess Mariana of Austria (1634-1696).

Inbreeding marriage destroys an important family

"The dynasty of the Habsburgs was the most influential in European history and the Holy Roman Empire in particular. However, close marriage led to the downfall of the whole family." - Genetics expert Roman Vilas from University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) said.

"Incest in this family has long been discussed, but this is the first time we have evidence of its consequences for Habsburg function."

Another portrait of Philip IV

To conduct the study, Professor Vilas asked 10 surgeons to examine the facial deformities of the 15 members of the Habsburg family, based on the 66 portraits collected. Each doctor was asked to look for 11 protruding features of the lower jaw, along with seven features indented from the upper jaw.

The results showed that Habsburg function in the lower jaw was most evident in King Philip IV - the emperor of Spain and Portugal during 1621 - 1640. Besides, there were 5 members suffering from the upper jaw. Extremely heavy indented is Maximilian I, his daughter is Margaret (Austria), nephew is Charles (Spain), great-grandchildren Charles is Philip IV and Charles II. The least affected were Princess Mary of Burgundy, who had been married to the family since 1477.

Maximilian I

Experts found that the two symptoms were related to each other, and it is entirely possible that they came from their faulty genome. In addition, to determine the level of inbreeding of the clan, experts look to their genealogy - including 6,000 people over 20 generations. And when compared, they found a huge connection between inbreeding marriage and the incidence of Habsburg.

However, only 2 of the 7 features from the lower jaw can be analyzed. Genes that actually cause the disease are still open.

Mary from Burgundy is not affected by this disease, because she is an outsider

According to Vilas, the in-house marriage of the Habsburgs helped the family maintain a strong influence in history. But biologically, this is a bad idea: when a child is born with a partner too close, the chance of developing a recessive trait is very high, which in turn increases their health. downward. Like King Charles II (Spain), for example, he could not even bear offspring.

Vilas also noted that this study only analyzed a few cases, so it is impossible to exclude the possibility that everything is simply coincidence, and this family is too unlucky.

"Research is based only on historical figures. Inbreeding marriage was very common in ancient royals, but so far some religious and ethnic minorities exist. So, the study Its consequences are extremely important, " - Vilas said.

"The Habsburg dynasty is like a precious specimen to study on this issue, because close marriages between them are great."

The research is published in the journal Annals of Human Biology.