A wild week for Peter the Wild Boy

This week Peter the Wild Boy was on the radio as part of the Making History programme on Radio 4, and he also popped up in our new video on the Historic Royal Palaces Youtube channel.   He was written about in The Guardian, and in the Daily Mail as well.

The excitement was all caused by our discovery of a what Peter’s medical condition might actually have been.  I showed the portrait and gave the description of his physical characteristics and odd habits to Phil Beale, professor of genetics at the Institute of Child Health.  Phil ran the symptoms through his database of chromosomal disorders, and came up with a diagnosis of Pitt-Hopkins syndrome, which was identified in 1978, centuries after Peter’s death.  Its most distinctive effect is clearly shown in Peter’s portrait, his curvy Cupid’s bow lips.