Spontini, Hoffmann, Donizetti, Macdowell, Delius and Other Composers Neurosyphilitics

Breitenfeld, Tomislav, Vodanovic, Marijo, Breitenfeld, Darko, Sostar, Zvonimir, Lucijanic, Marko, Buljan, Danijel, Granic, Roko, Alcoholism

Summary -The aim of this article is to emphasize and summarize some pathographies of eminent composers, about twenty of them, who died of neurosyphilis. It is likely that the number of composers who were infected with treponema pallidum was greater, but nobody knew about syphilis before the eighteenth century. Most of them died in the first half of the nineteenth century. In pathographies of a few eminent composers (Schubert, Donizetti, Glinka, Schumann, Smetana, Chabrier and Wolf), syphilis is described as a sexually transmitted disease in the primary, secondary and tertiary stage-form characterized by gumma, progressive paralysis and tabes dorsalis. The average age of death in this …

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Publication information: Article title: Spontini, Hoffmann, Donizetti, Macdowell, Delius and Other Composers Neurosyphilitics. Contributors: Breitenfeld, Tomislav - Author, Vodanovic, Marijo - Author, Breitenfeld, Darko - Author, Sostar, Zvonimir - Author, Lucijanic, Marko - Author, Buljan, Danijel - Author, Granic, Roko - Author. Journal title: Alcoholism. Volume: 45. Issue: 2 Publication date: May 1, 2009. Page number: 143+. © Centre for Study and Control of Alcoholism and Addictions, Zagreb 2008. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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