Syphilitic Speculation
I don’t know why I find the subject of syphilis to be so fascinating. Maybe because you have these great minds through history that turn to madness with the aid of a tiny bacterium. Maybe because I’m also fascinated with Hansen’s Disease which has a similar but more nefarious stigma.
People are always speculating about famous syphilitics. But really, we don’t know for sure that Friedrich Nietzsche had syphilis. And we like to blame Van Gogh’s madness on any number of things, including the infamous spirochete. The syphilis entry on Wikipedia has a great list of “Notable known and suspected syphilis-infected people…” that shows who was known to have it, who was merely suspected to have it and who died of it.
Because of my morbid fascination, I think I will start a “diseased world” tour, starting with this book