Disease Detective

One of Hayden's discoveries is the significance of Morell's notation that Hitler's second heartbeat had a telltale tonal quality that often goes undetected unless the doctor is listening for it. The Stokes textbook Modern Clinical Syphilology had called attention to this aortic afterbeat as an almost sure sign of syphilis. Another Hayden discovery is that Morell aggressively treated his patient with potassium iodide, the medication of choice in 1940 for late-stage cardiovascular syphilis.

Adding to Hayden's pile of circumstantial evidence is a published remark by Hitler pal Putzi Hanfstaengl that the German leader had caught the pox in Vienna about 1908, presumably from a prostitute (according to some rumors, she was Jewish). His experience with syphilis might explain, Hayden says, why Hitler included sections in his memoir, Mein Kampf, devoted to "Syphilis, Blood Sin and Desecration of the Race"; "The Task of Combating Syphilis"; "Sound Mind-Sound Body"; "Sterilization of the Incurables"; and "Prostitution of the People's Soul."

Hayden believes that Hitler may have hastened the German war effort in a race against his impending death from heart failure or syphilitic paralysis. She takes pains, however, to point out that his well-known grandiosity and paranoia may not have been signs of syphilitic dementia (although they could have been), since he was, after all, Hitler, and even his own generals were trying to blow him up. In the end, though, Hayden concludes with characteristic detachment, "There is no definitive proof that Adolf Hitler had syphilis, any more than there is undeniable evidence that he did not."

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As Pox's publication date approached, the trove of books, Xeroxed documents, rough drafts, and photographs of horrible sores, lesions, and syphilitically deformed babies that decorated Hayden's digs for so many years was neatly cataloged and filed away. Pox is being uncrated in bookstores across the land, graced with a cover featuring lightning flashes and images of the (probably) afflicted. There is nothing left for Deborah Hayden to do except some yoga, maybe have friends in for a gourmet meal.

Well, there is something. A Google search just turned up the death certificate of Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. It seems that he, too, had syphilis -- and the disease may have influenced his creation of that genteel man of the night whose befanged visage still haunts our culture. Hayden is off and running -- so little time, so many syphilitics to discover.