POX: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis
Basic Books 2003, paperback 2004
How I came to write Pox
Praise for Pox
from the paperback
“POX brings out the extraordinary range of symptoms that syphilis can have, how it affected innumerable lives (including those of many famous artists and savants), and how it is still very much around, and not just a historical curiosity. It is excellently researched and vividly written, and Hayden's passion for the topic shines through on every page.”
—Oliver Sacks, MD, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat
"POX...presents the fascinating thesis that many eminent figures in history very likely suffered from syphilis and that the disease may explain at least some aspects of their behavior, their career decisions and how they accomplished their feats of divinity or defiance.”
— Natalie Angier, New York Times
“ …a repository of all that had been forgotten about a sinister bacterium and the disease that was its legacy. If Oscar Wilde was correct when he said that ‘history is merely gossip,’ then POX is history at its best.”
— Philip Mackowiak, MD The New England Journal of Medicine
“A riveting, eye-opening book. . . POX will be of interest to anyone who loves a good mystery story.”
—Elizabeth M. Whelan, The Washington Times
“POX breaks new ground by casting syphilis — up to a point— as a romantic pathogen, as tuberculosis was long seen to be. . . . Hayden’s book is a worthy addition to the literature of plague. Her research is exemplary, and from the evidential point of view her accounts are definitive.”
—Hugh Pennington, MD, The London Review of Books
“In POX the author posits who among those still known to us might have had syphilis. . . . this well-researched book is welcome.”
—George E. Ehrlich, MD, JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association
“Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler, Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Ludwig van Beethoven, Vincent van Gogh, . . . many noted historical figures have joined the furtive queue at the STD clinic. So claims . . . Deborah Hayden, shining a light on the dark secrets of 14 famous names from the 19th and early 20th centuries.”
—John Bonner, New Scientist
“Intellectually transformative—POX radically and permanently alters one’s view of many historical titans. And, as if that weren’t enough, it is a wonderfully engrossing read, taking readers on a delicious detective hunt of the first order.”
—Irvin Yalom, MD, Love’s Executioner
“Hayden’s carefully researched book is destined to become a classic of short biography in the newly emerging field of ‘medical symbiotics.”
—Lynn Margulis, author of Acquiring Genomes: The Theory of the Origin of the Species.
“POX is a bombshell that blows open the question of the place of syphilis in the highest reaches of history.”
—Rudolph Binion, author of Hitler Among the Germans
“This fluently written book makes for an engaging read.”
—Edward Shorter, MD, Nature Medicine
“…often fascinating — like poring through people’s lives with a microscope”
—Dallas Morning News
“…morbidly fascinating historical profile."
-Kirkus Reviews
“Hayden pulls together fascinating medical histories. . . Her arguments . . . are sure to provoke debate.”
-Publishers Weekly
"…a fascinating account …any book that combining genius, madness, sex, and disease is bound to find an audience.”
-Library Journal
“POX breaks new ground in the fields of medical history and biography . . . Hayden presents 15 historical celebrities, including Beethoven, Nietzsche, Lincoln, and her pièce de résistance, Hitler.”
-Peter Byrne, S.F. Weekly
“Is it possible for a book to be too entertaining?”
—South Florida Sun Sentinel
“Deborah Hayden attempts to put words to the unmentionable, pursuing a disease whose most recognizable attribute is that it can’t be recognized.”
—Bookforum
“provocative and controversial”
—The Tennessean
“A good read for anyone who loves a skillfully guided tour through a new, important and fascinating subject. It combines original thinking with smooth narrative. Two thumbs up!”
—Thomas P. Lowry, MD, The Free Lance Star
“Hayden has written vividly and with clarity about the nature of the disease. In each of her cases she has convincingly, to this non-medical reader, demonstrated the validity of her suggested diagnoses.
—Oscholars: The Internet Journal of Oscar Wilde News
“In a world filled with the fear of AIDS and SARS and in a culture fascinated with Hollywood’s version of the forensic sciences, POX is a curious, compelling read.”
—Times Union
“Deborah Hayden has combined a talent for explaining complicated medical studies with a historian’s determination to force the privacy of the past in writing a most valuable book.
—Baton Rouge Advocate
“A unique historical perspective for the current epidemic of AIDS.”
—Whole Earth Magazine
“Deborah Hayden is a genuinely original thinker and a beautifully lucid writer.”
—William Schaberg, author of The Nietzsche Canon
“A tour de force that will make readers recognize the impact infectious diseases have on individuals, society, now and throughout history.”
-Norbert Hirschhorn, MD, Yale University School of Medicine
“An extraordinary journey with the spirochete through the lives and works of some of history’s most famous and infamous characters. Hayden is not afraid of traveling through unchartered and dangerous terrain.”
-Ashley Robins, MD, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Detail 3
Articles, Reviews, & Other Writing
New Statesman, “Pain and Shame: the triumph of the pox,” 5 December 2003
Reprinted as “The poison of the darkness,” Financial Review, 31 May 2003
“Did Wilde Have Syphilis? A Response to Ashley Robins,” in The Wildean : A Journal of Oscar Wilde Studies, January 2004
“Nietzsche and Maupassant—A comparison of two cases of nineteenth-century paresis,” Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists, Basel: Karger: 2005
“Alas Poor Yorick: Digging up the dead for retrospective diagnosis poses moral, ethical and legal dilemmas,” Public Library of Science Medicine, March 200
“Nietzsche’s Secrets,” in Nietzsche and Depth Psychology, SUNY Press 1999
“Rudolph Binion’s Traumatic Encounter with Frau Lou,” Clio’s Psyche, Sept. 2011
“Remembering Rudolph Binion--and Frau Lou.” New Nietzsche Studies, Winter 2011, Spring 2012
Interviews
“High Hitler,” History Channel, produced by Andy Webb, 2004. Hitler’s illnesses, including amphetamine poisoning, Parkinson’s, and syphilis.
New York Times, C.J. Chivers, “A Retrospective Diagnosis Says Lenin Had Syphilis.” Reprinted in The International Herald Tribune and The Moscow Times.
Women’s Hour with Martha Kearney — BBC Radio 4
All in the Mind—“Pox on the Brain,” ABC Radio, Nat. Australian Broadcast Corporation
BBC Radio 3, London, “Schumann in the Madhouse,” broadcast during intermission of the Glasgow Symphony.
WAMU-AM “Kojo Nnamdi Show” with Gail Bolan, Chief of STD Control Branch, California Dept of Health Services
Lectures & Readings
Dr. Peter F. Ostwald Memorial Lecture-Recital Grand Rounds
University of California San Francisco and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, “Schumann: the Syphilis Controversy.”
Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA.
Bay Area History of Medicine Society, “Syphilis and Biography: The Challenge of Retrospective Diagnosis.”
Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco, CA.
Articles About Pox
San Francisco Weekly, “Disease Detective,” Peter Byrne (cover story)
London Review of Books, “Can you close your eyes without falling over?” Hugh Pennington, Chair Bacteriology, Aberdeen University
Science and Spirit Magazine, “Odd to Joy”—Gerald Callahan, M.D
Culture Wars, “A Pox on your History,” E. Michael Jones
Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science, “Pestilent Malignant Beams,” Robert J. Joynt, M.D.,
Bookforum—Shelley Jackson
OScholars—Stephen Benson, Royal College of Physicians, London
Intentions, published by the Oscar Wilde Society—Donald Mead
The Schubertian: Journal of the Schubert Institute (UK), Richard Morris
OScholars—Stephen Benson, Royal College of Physicians, London
Intentions, published by the Oscar Wilde Society—Donald Mead
The Schubertian: Journal of the Schubert Institute (UK), Richard Morris
Reviews
Medical/Peer-Reviewed/Scientific Journals
New England Journal of Medicine, Philip A. Mackowiak, M.D.
Journal of the American Medical Society, George E. Ehrlich, MD
British Medical Journal—Gavin Yamey, M.D.
Nature Medicine—Edward Shorter, M.D.
New Scientist—John Bonner.
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences—Gerald N. Grob, M.D.
Science Week
Libraries/Book Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Publishers Weekly
Library Journal
Booklist
Newspapers
The New York Times —"Feared by All--Even Giants and Tyrants" by Natalie Angier
The New York Times Book Review
The Washington Times— Elizabeth M. Whelan, President of the American Council on Science and Health
International Herald Tribune
American Scientist
Los Angeles Times—Anthony Day
Whole Earth Review, “Eaters of Flesh,” David Bolling
Sunday Times of London, Joyce and Syphilis, Jonathan Leake
The Times of London—“Was syphilis the demon that drove Hitler into madness?” —Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent
The Sunday Telegraph (London)—James Le Fanu