Pox: Genius, Madness, And Mysteries Of Syphilis

New York: Basic Books / Perseus Books, 2003. -----The scan you see is the book you get. Quarter bound orange cloth grey boards gilt on spine, xx, 379 pages with b & w illustrations, Near Fine condition, dust jacket is in Near Fine condition. "From Beethoven to Oscar Wilde, from Van Gogh to Hitler, Deborah Hayden throws new light on the effects of syphilis on the lives & works of seminal figures from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Writing with remarkable insight & 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 & suicidal depression, megalomania and paranoia, profoundly affecting sufferers' worldview, their sexual behavior, and their art. Deeply informed & courageously argued, Pox has been heralded as a major contribution to our understanding of genius, madness, & creativity." Contents include: Cactus Flower: Portrait of a Syphilitic (A Fantasy) / Intro / The Disease / Christopher Columbus / The Revenge of the Americas / A Brief History of the Spirochete / Shedding Light on the Poison of the Darkness / From Poisonous Cures to Wonder Drug (Almost) / The Physician's Viewpoint / Detective Zeal: The Fragile Art of Retrospective Diagnosis / The Nineteenth Century / Ludwid van Beethoven / Franz Schubert / Robert Schumann / Charles Baudelaire / Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln / Gustave Flaubert / Guy de Maupassant / Vincent van Gogh / Friedrich Nietzsche / Oscar Wilde / The Twentieth Century / Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) / James Joyce / Adolf Hitler / Pox Gallery / A Gallery of Pox: The Myth of Syphilis / Epilogue / Appendix A: Ten Clues to Secret Syphilis / Appendix B: Stokes's Case Study / notes / Bibliography / index. Check out the scans. . First Edition First Printing. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Near Fine. 8vo.