Joyce Maier <[log in to unmask]>:

>medically spoken it's very unlikely, maybe even impossible, that a
>person infected with syphilis in his teens would stay as healthy as
>Beethoven did until at least his 50s and yet would have suffered from
>deafness caused by this syphilis.

I am not sure on that.  Type A of Syphilis is when infected one gets a
small hard wet wound, which like Amfortas wound just doesn't want to heal
to treatment ...until after three-four weeks, when it self-heals.  Ca 2
months after that the infected person gets other signs of genaral infection
(Type B) with red marks popping up on the skin, and feeling of illness in
the person in question, until also these sympthoms self-heals without
treatment.  Then the person belives he is OK, but the Treponema P.  is like
Gods mills moling slowly but very fine, and gradually it wins onstep upon
different conductivas of the body, and it strikes heavily perhaps as late
as 30 years after the infection (Type C).  Like the terrorists first
infilter their target, and when they feel strong enough - or are activated
- they strike.  Ms.Maier has studied the subject of Beethovens deafness
much more than me, and I would like to avoid speaking against her in the
specific case of Beethoven, but I would like say that I understand if it is
difficult to finally judge this as the cause of the deafness.  "Montezumas
Revenge" was a very common illness before Salvarsan, just because many who
got infected could go on with their perhaps volouptous lives as before, in
the belief or disbelief the were infected.  And that traces the other thing
I wanted to point out; and that is that Syphilis is tricky as it can strike
so many different parts of the body, and with such different strength and
move, and thereby different sympthoma.  For example in Stadium B, an
infected can loose the hair, get severe headache or jointache, and other
"famous" signs of syphilis, but these don't need to appear at all.  In fact
an infection can be so subtle that the infected first doesn't notice the
wound, and then believes the feeling bad 2 months later (in stage B) comes
he ate something bad for breakfast one day (and makes no connection to a
possible act), and then he dies 27 years later from pnuemonia before the
Syphilis has actived itself in the later stages, if it ever does (but can
also be activated very quick).  If Syphilis in the C stage attacks the
brain or the spine (but it can as well attack the heart or the pulsevenes
or whatever) it can do this in so many different ways so it ought to be
impossible to tell if a peculiar malfuction in the person is a result of
it or not.  "Paralysie Generale" (which Hugo Wolff got) is the Type D of
Syphilis, and is one possible consequence of neurosyphilis with Dementia
and related as result, but "Tabes Dorsalis" is another form of
neurosyphilis, which can work much more smooth and subtle in the sypthoms,
and give pains, and loss of feeling (and similar) in (any) parts of the
body, as the nerves centras or the nerves themselves are attacked.  The
last not necessary lethal and a possible cause of for example deafness.

Mats Norrman
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