Oscar Wilde syphilis debate--update

The January/February 2004 issue of the Wildean, the journal of the Oscar Wilde Society, has a pro/con article about the syphilis question. Ashley Robins, South African psychopharmacologist and author of an article in the Lancet on the syphilis question, wrote an essay summarizing the reasons why there is no clinical proof that Wilde had syphilis. I wrote a reply, agreeing that there is no clinical proof, but suggesting that there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to have convinced a nineteenth century syphilologist that Wilde had syphilis. The editor, Donald Mead, has agreed to let me post the article on this blog, which I will do soon. He plans to publish letters about the debate in the next issue, so I will include his contact information as well.

Comments

[Walter]

If not for syphilis, why was he taking mercury?

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[Deb]

Walter--

Mercury was used quite widely for a variety of ailments, so Wilde's use of mercury does not in itself prove syphilis. But the use of mercury in conjunction with the probable time of infection is very suspicious indeed. Ellmann was quite clear when he wrote of the reason that Wilde lost Florence Balcome to Bram Stoker--who, by the way, was clearly syphilitic. Tabes dorsalis was on his death certificate. Ellmann: "His obligatory two years' wait after syphilis had been diagnosed was not over." Mercury would have been the treatment of choice during a two-year wait for marriage. (page 104 of his Wilde biography). On page 95 he wrote: "He adopted mercury rather that religion as the specific for his dreadful disease." It would have been nice if Ellmann had footnoted how he knew that.

[Dave Bridge]

I hope new editions will include explanations of Medical terms.

[Dave Bridge]

I hope new editions will include explanations of Medical terms.