Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 1844-1900
As the savvy but occasionally sanctimonious butler Jeeves said of his nitwit master Bertie Wooster’s frightful ex-fiancée Florence –
“It was her intention to start you almost immediately upon Nietzsche. You would not like Nietzsche, Sir. He is fundamentally unsound”.
Carry on, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse, 1925
Between the two of them, Jeeves and Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse KBE had made their point perfectly clear to their vast audience across the totality of the English speaking world – in 1925.
Jawohl, mein Herr
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Following the cataclysmic devastation of the First World War, the Prussian philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was indelibly branded in both England and America as “the apostle of German ruthlessness and barbarism”.
Nietzsche was, of course, rabidly antisemitic and dangerously ultra-nationalistic, an out and out evil influence on the increasingly liberalistic Free World.
Nietzsche had, after all, created and idealized the concept of the Übermensch – The Superman.
Nietzsche had become universally hated by anybody in the least bit sane and sensible.
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Evidently, Friedrich Nietzsche was the archetypal crackpot, as bonkers as a philosopher can get, launching a cataract of weird and wonderful lunes upon a clutch of angst-ridden fellow Prussians suffering from a severe lack of “cosmopolitan purpose”.
Nietzsche was the really rather dim son of a rural Lutheran pastor, reputedly homosexual. According to his competitors in the 19th century race for reason, and a prominent neurologist of the time, he had contracted syphilis in a Leipzig male brothel whilst a student. Certainly his friendships with women were brief and scant, and ended badly. But, perhaps he might have been very well aware of the infectiousness of his disease.
Around 40% of syphilis cases, if untreated, develop complications. This “tertiary” syphilis can affect the brain and nervous system – “neurosyphilis”, occurring possibly years after the primary infection.
In 1869, at the age of 24, and with some help from his friends, Nietzsche was appointed Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Basel. He soon took up with the fashionable “modern philosophy” as recently set out by Immanual Kant’s system. He resigned his secure post after ten years of tenure. The reason given for the abandonment of his academic career was “ill health”.
For the following ten years, Nietzsche wandered Europe, supported by a small pension and a few remaining steadfast friends, expounding prolifically and erratically. However, he did prove himself to be fundamentally anti-nationalistic, and to be in total disagreement with the creed of antisemitism.
As his mental health deteriorated, his behaviour became increasingly unpredictable. His consumption of opium and chloral hydrate had become unsupportable. Culmination came in Turin when he witnessed an exhausted horse being brutally beaten by a frustrated owner. Embracing the animal’s neck, he was heard to whisper to it before losing consciousness.
In 1886, Nietzsche’s sister Elisabeth married an ultra-nationalist, ferociously antisemitic ex-schoolteacher, and the couple abruptly left for Paraguay to found an “Aryan” colony. “Nueva Germania” significantly failed, and her husband committed suicide.
On Elisabeth’s return, she found her isolated and alienated brother committed to an asylum for the insane. Thereafter, Elisabeth cared for the incapacitated Friedrich, and started the process of assembling his voluminous works – “The Nietzsche Archive”.
To suit her own convictions, Elisabeth made radical changes to her brother’s original texts as she saw fit. Elisabeth had carefully cast her brother in her own evil light.
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The falsified Nietzsche Archive was not critically examined until the 1950s, having been a source of motivational inspiration for the German soldiers of the First World War, and, a little later, for Hitler and his Nazi Party – who had financially supported the Archive with considerable enthusiasm.
Therese Elisabeth Alexander Fürster-Nietzsche died in 1935.
“Wireless to the New York Times Nov.12, 1935
WEIMAR, Germany, Nov. 11 –
Fuehrer Adolf Hitler attended here today the funeral of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s sister, Mrs. Elisabeth Foerster, who died at the age of 89 years, having devoted the latter part of her life to her brother’s archives”.
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There was no post-mortem, no autopsy. Nietzsche had died of pneumonia, but the underlying pathology remains, therefore, speculative. Some hobbyist doctors have made attempts to divine some more exotic diagnoses from the scant written evidence that survives, but there is no reason to reject out of hand the sound contemporaneous medical opinion of neurosyphilis – general paralysis of the insane, paralytic dementia, general paresis, syphilitic paresis – all generally known today as “tertiary syphilis”. The symptoms obviously fit.
But, Pastor Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, father of Friedrich, had died in 1849, aged 35, of a “brain ailment”. This ailment was said to be as a result of “concussion” caused by a trip over a small dog and a fall down a stone stairwell.
Carl died eleven months later.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI), the primary injury, has been recently recognised as a major cause of secondary brain damage through an exaggerated cascade of inappropriate inflammatory responses. (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke). Ongoing research is suggesting that there is also a propensity to develop Alzheimer’s disease following traumatic brain injury.
It is tenuous, but there could have been a familial Nietzsche trait.
If so, Viagra might have been useful.
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By now, I think we all know about Viagra – the blue pill that keeps you going after a party.
The WellMan Clinic imported Viagra sildenafil in 1998. Our supply arrived on 10 May, Viagra having been approved by the FDA on 27 March.
It caused a bit of a stir.
Pfizer marketed Viagra sildenafil in the UK as from October 1998. Promptly, the Department of Health advised doctors that they “should not prescribe sildenafil… other than in exceptional circumstances” (PMID 10562764).
Despite brisk opposition from the UK Government, Viagra sildenafil and its offspring PDE5 inhibitors, Cialis tadalafil, Levitra vardenafil, Spedra avanafil, have made their way in the market, some variants becoming available over the counter, without prescription.
It is predicted that the worldwide market size value of erectile dysfunction drugs (PDE5 inhibitors) will increase from USD 2.65 billion in 2023 to USD 4.79 billion by 2030 (CAGR of 8.8%). (Grand View Research – ID 978-1-68038-604-2).
The cause of this bonanza is the increasing life expectancy of males, along with the grossly debilitating effects of booming obesity and subsequent diabetes – not to speak of recreational use.
The good news is that early research has shown that PDE5 inhibitors can lead to improvements in learning and memory in Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia, through dilatation of arteries and consequential increase in blood supply to cerebral tissue.
No large clinical trials have been conducted, but tadalafil was approved for medical use in 2003 for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, and later for pulmonary hypertension and benign prostatic hyperplasia. Being long acting, up to 36 hours, tadalafil can be used in small daily doses to achieve the desired effect. Adverse reactions, if any at all, are mild.
The WellMan Clinic is now prescribing daily tadalafil for the prevention of vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
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Richard Petty
Please ask our Practice Manager if you would like further information.
