Ella's Health

[Sunny]

I think "parotit" is the scientific name - in italian we call it just like this, parotite or, simpler, orecchioni (litt: big ears)
I know in english it is also called mumps - hope this is more understandable.
It is a childish illness just like measles, but in parotitis you don't have spots. The glands we have in our throat swell and your cheeks are so wide you look like a hamster! it for this reason we call it "big ears": your cheeks and low part of ears swell so much that your face is just like a baloon!
Of course you have high fever, and sore throat; the glands can swell on both sides of your face (this is the worse) or only one. But if you have swellen glands only on one side, you can have this illness again and swell on the other side. Instead, if your glands are swelled on both sides, yu can't take parotitis another time (this was my case when i was 6).
It's not a serious illness, if you take it when you are a child; but if you take it when you are grown up, it's terrible!
They say that a grown up man who takes parotitis can become infertile - in Italy boys of around 12 who never have a vaccination.

[Kalafrana]

Mumps is quite an unpleasant business. I had it when I was eight (before there were vaccinations), and chicken pox immediately after. Mumps was infinitely nastier than chicken pox.

It is much worse in adults of either sex, and in Britain there has recently been an upsurge among students (18-21ish) because the effects of the vaccination tend to wear off.

Ann

[Eric_Lowe]

It is often remembered that Ella alone escaped the illness that befallen her family. Did she got it later in life ?

[lori_c]

She also either had fibroids (or endometriosis)...which is very uncomfortable to say the least !!

So this could certainly be the answer to the couple's childlessness. Perhaps her female problems were known as early as seven years into her marriage, when the Emperor AIII made the remark to the effect that he knew they would remain without children all their married lives.  Makes sense.  The Russian doctors may have seen it then.

[TheLionandTheEagle]

She also either had fibroids (or endometriosis)...which is very uncomfortable to say the least !!

So this could certainly be the answer to the couple's childlessness. Perhaps her female problems were known as early as seven years into her marriage, when the Emperor AIII made the remark to the effect that he knew they would remain without children all their married lives.  Makes sense.  The Russian doctors may have seen it then.

That and, statistically, if a couple goes seven years without preventing children, it is likely that they will have had children by then or else they probably never will.