by Dontrell Lovet't
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Treponema Pallidum subspecies Pallidum. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary). In the primary stage, the disease is most infectious and communicable to be passed along, the secondary stage turns the bacteria inwards on its host, halting its ability to be infectious to others and begins to destroy primarily the cardiovascular and Integumentary systems. In the Tertiary stage, the bacteria breaches the Blood/Brain barrier, entering the brain and begin to make mangle-work of the Cerebral Cortex, which eventually, inevitably, causes madness.
Syphilis, more so than any other disease, has intertwined with the fate of the Who's Who of literary and Musical geniuses in our human history. Beethoven's deafness in his later life was in fact due to advance Syphilis (deafness being one of the side effects of the progression of the disease), Mozart's reoccurring illness and painful death was at the hands of tertiary Syphilis (spending many years searching for a cure of what was termed "the Pox.") Guy de Maupassant, the French novelist, not only often bragged that he contracted a "real disease" but went on boasting of his repeated sexual encounters with young boys whom he knowingly infected in North Africa. Gustave Flaubert (known for his timeless yet dry novel "Madam Bovary") was not bashful in admitting his sexual exploits in his travel writings with Turkish girls and male prostitutes in Beirut and Egypt, noticing a chancre (the initial symptom of Syphilitic infection) on his penis. James Joyce, in surviving letters, discussed treatment for what he called "Pox" which stemmed from his various affairs and frequenting Parisian prostitutes; his greatest novel, Ulysses, was written under Joyce's body complete compliance to Syphilis, calling into question, how much of Ulysses was genius and how much was madness?
Vincent van Gogh's depression and self-mutilation (both too known to be common side effects of Syphilis) was noted along with his "pox" in letters to his brother. Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, not too long after his assassination, begin to exhibit signs of the tertiary advancement, as she knowingly wandered off, became delusional, aggressively erratic, which one can rightfully wonder; If Mary Todd had been infected, had Abraham? And if not for his untimely assassination at the hands of William Booth, would he too have fallen into a dead spin symptom of deteriorating?
Adolf Hitler, while serving as a soldier in the First World War, admitted his frequenting a Jewish prostitute, who undeniably, infected him. Mein Kampf, his novel and manual for the unification of the Aryan Race and the destruction of the Jews, is littered with Hitler's obsession with infected blood, mentions of pox and his primary care doctor, who kept him sedated when he wasn't on public tours of propaganda, recommending his Vegan dieting, was by trade a Syphilogist. With his documented late delusions and paranoia, all can explain Hitler's unvarying madness towards Jews (all representing the prostitute who infected him during the Great War) and his lack of initiative when surrounded and overwhelmed by allied forces in the last days of WWII.
Charles Baudelaire, [The Flowers of Evil], too, was a frequented guess of local brothels throughout Paris, coupled with his usage and lifelong addiction to laudanum, a morphine tincture, caused him to age quite rudely, meeting his demise at the young age of 46.
While most disease known to man had shaped the fates of nations and societies, Syphilis can be said to be one of the very few that influenced history and the course of literature, which brings to question; how much of the great works known the world over were drafted under infectious madness and how much under the madness of genius alone?
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