De quoi serait mort le coureur de Marathon ?

Abstract

Several historians thing that the legendary runner who brought the new of the Greek victory over the Persian army landed at Marathon, and who died after delivering his message, was only a legend because Herodotus did not mention the ruuner in his relation of the battle. However, other historians from Antiquy mentioned him and the local tradition was strong enough for the local organizers to accept a marathon race in Athen's first modern Olympic games. In addition, collapse and death, although rare, are not exceptional in long distance foot and bicycle races, especially in hot and humid weather. A hypothesis, based on experimental results obtained in healthy subjects, is presented here to explain these deaths as well as that of the legendary runner. It is proposed that the death might have been caused by sudded brain hyperthermia resulting from a loss of selective brain cooling when the patient stoping moving, thus ending the convective-evaporative heat loss from the head. Understanding its pathogeny may help prevent this dramatic accident in the future