I have been reading Paul Delaney's biography of George Gissing. It looks like he contracted syphilis from his first wife Nell, who had been a prostitute. She died when she was thirty of laryngitis (which sounds an awful way to go) although Delaney reckons the laryngitis was a symptom of tertiary syphilis. George Gissing remarried to another woman who gave him hell, and later entered a common law marriage with a Frenchwoman, by which time his own health was deteriorating. It looks like he died of emphysema, but he may well have been suffering from tertiary syphilis too. He had a lesion on his face and dilated pupils, both symptoms. Tertiary syphilis symptoms do not appear to include lung disease, but Gissing was a heavy smoker and London was rather polluted in those days. Maybe his emphysema carried him off before the syphilis. I can't help wondering whether Gissing endangered the health of his second and third wives. Gissing's syphilis would have been in the latent stage when the risk of passing it on were much lower. His two sons do not appear to have been affected by congenital syphilis, but his second wife had to be committed to an asylum because of her violent temper. If Gissing was suffering from syphilis, he would have suspected it. There is a passage in one of his later books, The Whirlpool, in which he hints that a character has it. It is an odd disease. Only 10-20% of people who contract syphilis go on to develop develop tertiary syphilis after a latent period of 2 to 15 years. If it does proceed to a tertiary stage, it does not always affect the same parts of the body. This must have been a nice waiting game for people. Paul Delaney writes that George Meredith was a sufferer too. It affected his spine, but he lived to old age with it.
Reply With Quote