The researcher makes her case in the current issue of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, based on clues in Barrett Browning's diary and letters, including those written to the man who would become her husband, the poet Robert Browning.
Buchanan said the evidence was not enough for absolute proof, but physicians and scientists who have read the manuscript find her theory compelling.
"There's no way to be really conclusive, but when I read it, I felt like it was one of my patients sitting here talking to me," said Willow Grove-based neurologist Stephen F. Lewis, who treats people from across the country with this paralysis.
The disease, which strikes fewer than 1 in 200,000 people, is marked by an impaired ability to regulate levels of potassium, which is essential for muscle contraction. Bouts of muscle weakness or paralysis can be brought on by extreme temperatures, exercise, and fasting, among other factors.
In her writings, Barrett Browning, who was born in 1806 and died in 1861, described feelings of overwhelming weakness after each of these triggers. In the diary she kept at age 25, she related her symptoms the day after a vigorous outdoor excursion:
"Very unwell - could scarcely get down stairs, my legs trembled so much."
Buchanan, a research associate in Penn State's anthropology department who studies genetics and epidemiology, is all too familiar with such symptoms.
She said her daughter, Ellen Weiss, now 30, suffered similar bouts of weakness starting during puberty. Like many with her disease, Weiss spent years going from doctor to doctor, seeking answers in vain, until she finally was diagnosed with periodic paralysis a few years ago.
Weiss recently read the letters that Barrett Browning had written to Robert Browning, and quickly became convinced that she and the ailing poet shared a disease. Her mother then took it further, studying the poet's diary and her correspondence with others.
