Product Description
"How a transmittable little bacterium with a twisting propellant tail...deeply affected...mankind's perception of itself." Anthony Day, Los Angeles Times From Beethoven to Oscar Wilde, from Van Gogh to Hitler, Deborah Hayden throws new light on the effects of syphilis on the lives and works of seminal figures from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Writing with remarkable insight and narrative flair, Hayden argues that biographers and historians have vastly underestimated the influence of what Thomas Mann called "this exhilarating yet wasting disease." Shrouded in secrecy, syphilis was accompanied by wild euphoria and suicidal depression, megalomania and paranoia, profoundly affecting sufferers' worldview, their sexual behavior, and their art. Deeply informed and courageously argued, Pox has been heralded as a major contribution to our understanding of genius, madness, and creativity.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 18 reviews)

Conspiratorial by Reuben J. Swindall (Montana)

4 Stars
April 29, 2009
I purchased this book as a grad student writing a chapter of a thesis on the manifestations of madness in Nietzsche's philosophy. I was both excited and crest-fallen to read the chapter on Nietzsche because I thought I had come up with something semi-original in connecting the chauvenism of his late work with the final stages of the pox, however, Hayden makes this same argument. The Flaubert chapter also reenforced some of my earlier work. I wish I'd run into this book a year ago. As my title suggests, it is a bit conspiratorial at times, but Hayden makes a good effort to introduce the controversy while emphasizing the most likely options. Not quite-psychobiography, more archeological in its approach, Pox would be an excellent methodological model for anyone writing a history of a specific disease, drug, or anything else that has had reprocussions in the intellectual community. If you liked this book, I would recommend Kay Jamison's, Touched with Fire which connects Manic Depressive illness with the artistic temprament.

Oh Please!!! by Southern Gal

1 Stars
June 04, 2007
I completely agree with the reader who reviewed this book on January 30, 2003. The conclusions suggested in this book are silly and irresponsible. It is written by someone who is obviously not a health care professional. She also has little understanding of the nature of creation of great artistic works. This book is little more than bringing a tabloid home from the grocery store. Can she really think that such superb artistic accomplishment is the result of syphilis? If this is true, considering the infection rates of previous generations, we should have had myriads more artistic geniuses running around. If you are inclined to take this book seriously in any way, please do some additional study. I would suggest starting with a wonderful book on musical genius, "The Possessor and the Possessed" by Peter Kivy. This academic book addresses the musical genius of Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven seriously and is part of the Yale series on the philosophy and theory of art. I am sure as time passes, Deborah Hayden's book will be dismissed as the worst of journalism. Let us look at Beethoven for instance. Beethoven was a child prodigy and gave his first piano concert in his eight year. His talent for improvisation was recognized very early. One of Beethoven's early teachers refused to teach Beethoven very long because he said the youngster already knew everything he was trying to teach him. Mozart, after listening to a young Beethoven on the piano, said to others in the room, "Watch that boy. Someday he will give the world something to talk about." Goethe, the famous German poet and dramatist, said after meeting Beethoven many years later, "Never have I met an artist of such spiritual concentration and intensity." Please, fellow readers, be discerning in what you read and what you take from it. I have read approximately 35 books on Beethoven, including biographies written by Beethoven scholars past and present and not one has ever alluded to something as absurd as the ideas put forth by Ms. Hayden. Never believe something simply because it in print. Question, research, and find the truth. Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to listen to some of Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies and hear actual manifestations of genius while you are at it.

POX:Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis by Nancy D. Oconnor (Tucson, Arizona)

5 Stars
December 02, 2006
An incredible read of a disease that may affect so many of our lives today from infected parents and grandparents. The authors research and insights are revealing and insightful. I have found syphilis in my family doing genealogy research and Deborah Haydon has helped illunminate my family history and will be highlighted in my new book Lotties Lot. Nancy O'Connor PhD

Well Written Study About Syphilis History and its Effect on Great Historical Personalities by Victor Epand (Lahaina, Hawaii USA)

5 Stars
February 28, 2006
This book is well written and guides the reader through a detailed investigation about the possible effects of Syphilis on great historical personalities like Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Baudelaire, Abraham Lincoln, Flaubert Maupassant van Gogh, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Karen Blixen, James Joyce, and Adolf Hitler. Many of these historical giants were burdened by toxic medicines that ultimately lead to insanity and death.

Repetitious But Interesting by Timothy Haugh (New York, NY United States)

3 Stars
July 28, 2005
Until the mid-twentieth century, when it was shown that penicillin was an effective treatment, syphilis was one of the most common diseases in Europe and North America. Though the point is still debated, it seems likely that syphilis was the one epidemic Native Americans were able to give to their conquerors in the face of smallpox, measles and the rest that devastated their populations. Unlike the European diseases, however, which were quickly and disproportionately deadly, syphilis, after its sudden and sweeping introduction, quickly mutated into a chronic illness. Though ultimately fatal in some cases, syphilis often allowed carriers to live for many decades after the initial infection, slowly tearing the body apart. It is the story of this disease that has become largely ignored in modern scholarship that Ms. Hayden tells in Pox. There is much of interest in this book, particularly in the first section. Here, Ms. Hayden recounts what is known of the introduction of syphilis into Europe, including a lively discussion indicating that Columbus himself may have been among the first syphilitics. Even more interesting is her description of the disease itself from the signs of initial infection to the often gradual, extensive and painful deterioration that accompanies the progress of the disease ending in madness and death. She notes that there are two key problems in an analysis of syphilis: the fact that syphilis is "the great imitator" (meaning that its extensive symptoms are often easily mistaken for other diseases, especially as these symptoms may occur decades after the initial infection) and the fact that patients admitting to syphilis was rare because of the social stigma attached. So understanding the full impact of syphilis on Western culture is problematic. And here is where the book becomes less compelling. The last two sections of the book take us through the biographies of some important syphilitics like the Lincolns (Abraham & Mary Todd), Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche, Beethoven and van Gogh. If they are syphilitics. In many cases it's not known for sure though Ms. Hayden attempts to make the case. And, proved or not, she attempts to show how syphilis--if that's what it was--would have had important impact on their lives and work. Her most extensive and controversial case surrounds that of Adolf Hitler as having been infected as a young man (possibly by a Jewish prostitute) and how the last years of World War II saw his deterioration. The problems with these biographies are two-fold. First, is the simple matter of the difficulty in writing something interesting about each person. These biographies are extraordinarily repetitious: infection and illness, latency and then steadily worsening heath problems as the spirochetes take over. Second, they are filled with so much speculation. Even in the rare case where syphilis is a known infection, as Ms. Hayden admits, there is no guarantee that the following health problems are syphilitic in nature. They might be. All of this speculation begins to make the reader wonder if this is all fact or fiction. Still, Ms. Hayden often makes a compelling if not entirely convincing case. Certainly, she makes the case that it is a subject that deserves more interest, especially from biographers of these various subjects. There is no doubt that illness can have a great impact on a person's life, art and politics and Ms. Hayden deserves credit for bringing this important disease back to light.

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