Abstract

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born on 5 October 1844 and died on 25 August, 1900. From 1889 until his death eleven years later he was physically and mentally ill and incapable of work. It is almost certain that he died of the brain disease known as G.P.I., General Paralysis of the Insane, or general paresis. In the nineteenth century and well into our own era, this was a not uncommon tertiary manifestation of a syphilitic infection which might originally have been contracted many years before. Because the initial stages of syphilis can now be treated with antibiotics, general paresis is rarely seen today.