Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7424.1173-a

BMJ 2003;327:1173 (15 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7424.1173-a

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Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

At the end of the 19th century the syphilis expert Alfred Fournierestimated that 15% of the population of Paris was infected withsyphilis. There was probably a similar prevalence in big citiesacross Europe and the United States. And yet, as Deborah Haydennotes in her introduction to Pox, there are almost no memoirsor biographies by or about people who had syphilis during thisera. Syphilis, she writes, "was life's dark secret."

Deborah Hayden

Basic Books, £20.99,pp 379 ISBN 0 465 02881 0

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Pox is Hayden's ambitious attempt to shine some light on thisdarkness. She argues that although syphilis is rarely explicitlymentioned in the memoirs, biographies, or even the medical recordsof famous 19th and 20th century figures, if you are alert tothe right clues, you can make a convincing case for a diagnosis.

Hayden's detective work leads her to some pretty . . . [Full text of this article]

Gavin Yamey

BMJ gyamey@bmj.com

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