By Chris Hastings PUBLISHED: 16:41 EST, 6 October 2012 | UPDATED: 16:46 EST, 6 October 2012 The tragic death of poet John Keats at the age of just 25 may have been due to his mother’s heavy drinking, according to a new biography. Professor Nicholas Roe has drawn upon new medical evidence to suggest that Keats – one of the main Romantic poets along with Shelley and Lord Byron – may have suffered from foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) caused by his mother’s drinking while she was pregnant. FAS is a series of mental and physical defects which can occur in a foetus which has had exposure to alcohol.
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The condition, caused by mothers drinking alcohol while pregnant, causes low birth weight and physical defects
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The condition may have also left him vulnerable to disease, including the TB which killed him in Rome in 1821
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