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Historians have always assumed that the son of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra was a haemophiliac.  However, no absolute proof of that diagnosis exists and the medical records of the Tsarevich Alexei have yet to be found.  The only formal statement ever to come from the palace was issued by the physicians of the Imperial court on the 21st of October 1912 in which the doctors described the boy's symptoms as a "significant anaemia".  Alexei's blood disorder has always been given as the reason for Alexandra's dependence on the alleged faith healing abilities of the infamous Grigory Rasputin and his hold over the Empress during the finals two years when she was left minding the store, while her husband led his troops in the fight against Germany.

ALEXEI WAS NOT A HAEMOPHILIAC! That is not to say that the Russian doctors at the turn of the century were wrong in their diagnosis.  We do not know the official cause of the Prince's illness because it was never publicly explained by Russia's Imperial court.  In fact, it was a state secret.  There was a speculative piece in the Russian newspapers in 1913 and the story was expanded from there, but it was never actually confirmed.

We know a lot more now at the end of the twentieth century about the sciences of haematology and oncology than we did at its beginning.  There is no doubt that the boy was suffering from a potentially deadly blood disorder, but it was not haemophilia.  The curse that hung over the head of the young Tsarevich was even more terrible than that.

Reviewing all of the available material in the story of the Russian Royals reveals two problems with that original diagnosis.  Alexei would often go for months at a time without any problems and then be struck down without warning by a new attack.  This should have been one of the first alarm bells to ring with medical professionals telling them there is something wrong with the historic record.  The boy's symptoms were episodic but haemophilia is not.  It is always there.

The second alarm bell rings even louder than the first.  The worst episode Alexei experienced was at the Tsar's hunting lodge in Spala, Poland during October of 1912.  The boy screamed in agony, doubled up from the pain of internal haemorrhaging with his face exhibiting a sickly colourless pallor marked with black circles under his eyes.  The key to the true nature of Alexei's disease can be found in a letter that Tsar Nicholas wrote to his mother.  In it he said, "The days from the 6th to the 10th were the worst... His high temperature made him delirious night and day".

©  J. Kendrick 1997                                                                                                       (Continued on page 9)