Lord Nelson’s (1758–1805) left eye

SummaryFollowing the loss of his right eye at Calvi in 1794, Lord Nelson suffered increasing left-sided visual loss, here considered most likely to have been due to the ocular inflammatory condition ‘sympathetic ophthalmia’. It is also argued that his succeeding episodes of violent headaches with nausea and prostration, and possible depigmentation of hair, reflected the development of an uveomeningoencephalitic syndrome akin to that of Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada disease, which is best regarded as the same condition with a different aetiology.