poxblog

Wilde & Syphilis; info about the Oscar Wilde Society

The current issue of Intentions (No. 31, April 2004), published by the Oscar Wilde Society, has notes from an author's lunch with Neil McKenna, author of The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde. When asked "on a lighter note . . . Did he have syphilis?" the answer was: "There is no medical evidence at all of syphilitic symptoms in Oscar. If he had had syphilis then it's probable that his children would not have been so healthy. I have discussed this with Merlin Holand and I agree wholeheartedly with his view that Oscar did not have syphilis." (p. 18) He notes that Dr. Lanphier Vernon Jones, a gonorrhoea specialist, treated him when he came back from Algiers. The unpaid bill is in the PRO. McKenna suggests that Oscar's "fatal and foolhearty decision to sue Queensberry was made under the influences of the opiates he was taking" to deal with "the horrors of treatment for gonorrhoea."

In response: of course, syphilis cannot be dismissed this easily, given the vast amount of circumstantial evidence that points to Wilde's having had it (and knowing he had it and his friends and doctors knowing he had it). Healthy children are not an argument against syphilis, since the disease was only highly contagious for two years (less so for three more) and he married Constance many years after his hypothesized infection and treatment with mercury at Oxford. (Of course a relapse is possible later, and there has been speculation that Constance's spinal paralysis and her comment "You know you made me sick" suggest a possible infection.) Dermatology and syphilology were sister disciplines in Wilde's time. Was there such a thing as a "gonorrhoea specialist"? An interesting lead to track down further.

Meanwhile, here is subscription information for the Oscar Wilde Society. The editor, Don Mead, emailed that there would be further discussion of the syphilis question in the next issue of THE WILDEAN. Subscribe now!

Meriwether Lewis's Syphilis

Yesterday on Science Friday Ira Flatow did a program on the flora and fauna that Lewis & Clark brought back from their expedition. None of the guests mentioned one tiny passenger that, according to many Lewis biographers, hitched a ride back home with him and with many of his men: that is, T. Pallidum, the spirochete that causes syphilis. There has been a debate about whether T. Pallidum is plant or animal, which I believe has been settled for now, though I can't remember which won. For those interested in the syphilis hypothesis, read "Trail's End for Meriwether Lewis: The Role of Syphilis," by Reimert Thorolf Ravenholt, "Did Ambrose Bierce Sanitize Meriwether Lewis's Death?", also by Rei Ravenholt, or, if you prefer fiction, the novel Eclipse by Richard S. Wheeler. Tom P. Lowry has a whole book on the topic of the role of syphilis in the Lewis & Clark expedition, currently with a university press, alas, not in time for the bicentennial. I am curious why none of Ira Flatow's guests mentioned syphilis: did they not know of the diagnosis, disagree with it, or feel that it is too shameful to mention? Meriwether Lewis: another historical figure whose hypothesized Pox has been ignored by most writers. What a good question to reopen in this bicentennial year.