Nietzsche gave out never to know quite what was wrong with himself, though he suspected a hereditary problem and congratulated himself on surviving beyond his father’s age. Method: We have charted Friedrich Nietzsche's final fatal illness, and viewed the differential diagnosis in the light of recent neurological understandings of dementia syndromes. Nietzsche has variously been diagnosed as suffering from “epilepsy, apoplexy, hereditary mania, premature brain atrophy, paranoia, schizophrenia, and inadvertent self-poisioning”, as well as “bipolar disorder.” However, as Deborah Hayden has convincingly argued, Nietzsche was almost certainly suffering from syphilis. His father was Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (a Lutheran pastor and former teacher) and his mother was Franziska Oehler, and the couple had two other children, Elisabeth (born in 1846) and Ludwig Joseph (born in 1848). The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary). A paper just published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica reconsiders the insanity and death of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who is commonly thought to have died of neurosyphilis. Nietzsche probably contracted gonorrhea as a young man but had no clear history of primary or secondary syphilis. As Schain points out, only clinical diagnosis of neurosyphilis was possible in Nietzsche's time and neurosyphilis was clearly used as a 'waste basket' categorization of … Further questions then arise. The question is did he have syphilis? “The German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, who had syphilis, said that only a person of deep faith could afford the luxury of religious skepticism. Nietzsche’s dementia was caused by syphilis. Interestingly, the psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875–1961) had a considerable role in popularizing the notion that Nietzsche had syphilis (5, p 186). Neurosyphilis is a Treponema pallidum bacteria infection of the coverings of the brain, the brain itself or the spinal cord, that usually occurs in people have had untreated syphilis for many years. --- It is very possible that Nietzsche died of complications from syphilis, it is not unreasonable to conclude so. The second half of this article addresses these points. No one knows, he was a sickly sort of lad who was plagued by headaches and other ailments for most of his life. #1 Nietzsche was a failure during his lifetime. 1879: Nz had to leave his post due to illness. Nietzsche's physicians, according to Dr Sax, suspected that he may not have had syphilis, but were unable to suggest an alternative. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. Nietzsche's doctors incorrectly diagnosed him with paretic syphilis, and this myth thereby persisted after his death for a long time. He surely lied to Wagner’s doctor, Otto Eiser. Neurosyphilis is a life-threatening complication of syphilis and can occur at any stage of syphilis. Before Nietzsche had become a professor at Basel, he had become an ardent disciple of the atheist, idealist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The problem for Schain is not that Nietzsche's oeuvre thereby becomes the manifestation of a disease but that syphilis is an exogenous disease. Reporting his findings in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Biography , Dr Sax argues that a more plausible diagnosis would have been that the philosopher was suffering from a slowly-developing brain tumour. Many commentators think that Nietzsche died a virgin; Freud speculated that he had contracted syphilis at a male brothel in Genoa; and Thomas Mann believed it “incontestable” that Nietzsche’s madness was the product of tertiary syphilis. For a century, no one challenged the assumption that Nietzsche had gone mad as a result of tertiary syphilis and never recovered. The most that has been claimed is that as a student he may have visited a brothel once or twice. 1889: suffered a mental breakdown, never published thereafter. terrible insight Nietzsche must have had into the devastating horror ofpox! The doctor who has carried out the study claims that the universally-accepted story of Nietzsche having caught syphilis from prostitutes was actually concocted after the Second World War by Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum, an academic who was one of Nietzsche's most vociferous critics. In his last year, his letters give evidence of euphoria. Results: It is unclear that Nietzsche ever had syphilis. Little did I know Nietzsche’s life was kind of a shit show. As Nietzsche said, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. If Nietzsche had syphilis, then it's logical to conclude that he must have been infected by someone who had it, as the story goes a prostitute. Speculations have been made that he had syphilis, which the philosopher may have acquired congenitally, or later in a brothel, while other scholars dispute this claim. In a sentence, ... to dismiss claims that syphilis was to blame (see, e.g., E. F. Podach). But syphilis will kill you, and getting it will not make anyone, not even Nietzsche, smarter, stronger, funnier, more creative, or more fun, nor will it help anyone conquer the world or write great philosophy. - so says: cdc.gov, January 2014. Nietzsche’s letters from 1867 until his breakdown provide a vivid account of the suffering of secondary syphilis. Be that as it may, Nietzsche evidently never thought he had syphilis, and most of his life he was sexually a complete ascetic. If Nietzsche had syphilis, then, Schain avers, "it was an acquired disease that put the stamp on Nietzsche's thought; his ideas were a consequence of general paresis" (104). Nietzsche's physicians, according to Dr Sax, suspected that he may not have had syphilis, but were unable to suggest an alternative. Nietzsche was way ahead of us. Was it a creation just to discredit him? There's no proof Nietzsche had syphilis--he didn't even have the symptoms. For Nietzsche the word nihilism had a number of meanings, which I shall seek to clarify. Yet how can he not have known he had syphilis, with a scar close to his foreskin and a history, albeit brief, of treatment? A cure hadn’t been discovered in his lifetime, which meant he suffered a great deal of pain throughout his life. Nietzsche had the impressive feat of … By the time he entered school, he was already quite a serious boy. Nietzsche's physicians, according to Dr Sax, suspected that he may not have had syphilis, but were unable to suggest an alternative. Hereafter he travelled throughout Europe developing his philosophy. Whether Nietzsche later returned to this or similar establishments is a matter of dispute. When he was a student, Nietzsche contracted syphilis from a prostitute. Both Maupassant and Nietzsche had years of relapsing illnesses indicative of a severe progressing syphilis. Seeking medical treat-ment for eye inflammation, a frequent syphilitic symptom, he consulted Dr. Otto Eiser, who reported not only Niet-zsche’s penile lesions, but that he had 1900: died (unknown cause, possibly syphilis or frontotemporal dementia). Nietzsche had seen so much death and suffering at a very young age. More than 60% of all inmates in Europe’s mental asylums carried that diagnosis, despite no existing tests for the condition. Multiple sources indicate that he was treated for syphilis in 1867 at age twenty-three. In contrast, the authors of the new study suggest that Nietzsche died of frontotemporal dementia - a type of dementia that specifically affects the frontal and temporal lobes. Many commentators think that Nietzsche died a virgin; Freud speculated that he had contracted syphilis at a male brothel in Genoa; and Thomas Mann believed it "incontestable" that Nietzsche's madness was the product of tertiary syphilis. I aim to show that this consensus is likely to be incorrect, and will suggest a more plausible diagnosis. More likely it was brain cancer and the story is a posthumous smear by his critics. However, in 2003, Dr. Leonard Sax published an article in the Journal of Medical Biography that posted that, according to forensic evidence, Nietzsche did not have syphilis. Nietzsche had no signs or symptoms of tertiary syphilis, and the diagnosis was made in accordance with the prevailing paradigm of his time. In 1849, when Nietzsche was but five, his father died of softening of the brain (encephalitis or apoplexy). Here are the five craziest things about Nietzsche’s life from Alain de Botton’s video. Nietzsche (pronounced NEE-cha) was born on 15 October 1844 in the small town of Röcken bei Lützen, near Leipzig in the Prussian province of Saxony (modern-day Germany). Symptoms of Syphilis can persist if treated incorrectly. And, of course, there is syphilis. If Nietzsche did not have syphilis, how did that diagnosis arise, and how did it become the prevailing opinion? He wasn't "driven insane" for psychological reasons, but people sure do love to think so. “Extraordinarily, this single passage in Lange-Eichbaum’s obscure book is the chief foundation, cited again and again, directly or indirectly as we shall see, as ‘’proof’’ not only that Nietzsche had syphilis, but also that Nietzsche’s dementia was caused by paretic syphilis,” states Dr.Sax in his journal. Debunked: Syphilis. Humanists, by and large educated, comfortably middle-class persons with rewarding lives like mine, find rapture enough in secular knowledge and hope. It makes more "sense" than a random disease that can strike anyone. Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher thought to have died of syphilis, was the victim of a posthumous smear campaign by anti-Nazis, new research shows. He complains of the pain, skin sores, weakness, and loss of vision that typify the repertoire of the disease. One episode on Nietzsche details his life and work.