Ménière's disease
The hypothesis of Ménière's disease has gained some popularity. A diagnosis of Ménière's disease is based on a series of symptoms, some of which were present in Darwin's case, such as tinnitus, vertigo, dizziness, nausea, motion sickness, vomiting, continual malaise and fatigue. The fact that Darwin did not suffer from hearing loss, and that "fullness" of the ears is never mentioned, practically excludes Ménière's disease. The definition of this disease is, however, not very solid, and some form of "atypical Ménière's disease" remains a remote possibility. Motion sickness was present throughout his life and became apparent very early, when he suffered horribly from seasickness during the whole "Beagle" voyage. Darwin himself had the opinion that most of his health problems had an origin in his four-year bout with seasickness. Later, he could not stand traveling by carriage, and only horse riding would not affect his health. Psychic alteration often accompanies Ménière's and many other chronic diseases. An argument put forward for a diagnosis of Ménière's is that Darwin hunted a lot when he was young and could have damaged his inner ear with the repeated noise of shooting. While it is not unlikely that the noise damaged the inner ear and caused tinnitus, it could not have caused Ménière's disease. While Ménière's disease patients suffer during vertigo attacks from sickness and vomiting, the dyspepsia problems of Darwin have nothing to do with it. One of the diagnoses that he received from his physicians at the time was that of "suppressed gout"; the idea that this was an early name for Ménière's lacks any ground.