Actually, Nietzsche's books are very reminiscent of those written by patients suffering from Mania. Nowadays we see this mainly in bipolar patients, but in the past, mania was seen with the onset of neurosyphillis, which alas was common in those days. Which is why most docs always assumed his terminal mania followed by collapse was from this disease, which theoretically he caught as a student from a prostitute.
The aim of this inquiry is notwhat caused Nietzsche's madness; it is when his madness began. This is a significant question for philosophy, for if his street collapse was the culmination of a serious mental illness that had been underway for even a few weeks before this event, at least one or two of his six 1888 books must have been written under the spell of madness. If this were indeed the case, the difficult question is precisely how many of these books have been infected by his illness.
However, few docs nowadays have seen a case, so the "new" argument is that he died of " Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) accounts for all the signs and symptoms of Nietzsche's illness"
More discussion by laypeople HERE.
Sorry, guys, but in this I suggest the old medical addage "when you hear hoofbeats think Horses, not Zebras".
and syphillis was, alas, common in the Victorian era.
Before the discovery that high fever could reverse the infection ('malariatherapy") and the discovery of salvarsan and later penicillin, the disease was common for causing dementia in the middle aged.
factoid of the day: Syphillis may have saved Italy from Charles VIII. LINK2
the battle of fornovo was a French defeat.
As a footnote, Charles' army had picked up a terrible malady while in Naples. While it is unclear whether it was imported from the New World or a more virulent strain of an Old World disease, the first known epidemic of syphilis had broken out in the city. As the French Army returned north this malady would be spread across Italy, and eventually all of Europe. Spread by the returning soldiers, it would be known through most of Europe as the "French disease".
when syphillis affected the spinal cord, it was called tabes dorsalis. You diagnosed it by checking the puppilary response of the patient, and by their Romberg (stand up, put your hands out, close your eyes, and you fall down).
factoid of the day:
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, completed his doctorate on tabes dorsalis in 1885.[3]
(headsup from Secondhandsmoke)
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