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(105.1KB, 600x776) >In his last year, his letters give evidence of euphoria. His published works show the grandeur and inspiration that tertiary syphilis sometimes brings to brilliant and disciplined creative minds by removing inhibition as brain tissue is destroyed.
>In 1888 Nietzsche’s productivity was, by any standard, extraordinary. He completed his philosophical project: Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, and The Case of Wagner. The style of these works is apocalyptic, prophetic, incendiary, and megalomaniacal, leading many scholars to claim the excesses of these works were due to incipient paresis. Now, after more than half a millennium of the study of syphilis and more than a century after Nietzsche’s breakdown, our research suggests that the philosopher really did plummet abruptly into madness; armies of spirochetes did awaken suddenly from decades of slumber, and literally began to eat his brain.
>For instance, in European fiction and essays, syphilis and consumption often compelled their victims to feverish creativity and great writing activity.
