Syphilis

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Did Hitler Have Syphilis? http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/74776.php

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_Adolph..._have_syphilis

In 1908 at a young age Adolph Hitler contracted syphilis from an encounter with a prostitute. In that year the disease was not yet totally treatable. Known to be syphilitic by his close associates; his disease was kept secret and hidden from the public.
At some point an attempt was made to remove one of his testicles to treat the disease. Anger and resentment at having the disease and the perception of a destroyed sex life with women; and a certain early, disfiguring death; set him on a dangerous unsmiling course to, in his mind, destroy the scourge and its perceived causes.

Whole chapters in his later biograpy were devoted to the destruction of the disease and of the groups he believed caused the infection. His personal physician Dr. Theo Morell was an expert in the treatment of syphilis and tried many different approaches to the spectrum of strange symptoms exhibited by his patient.

Facial lesions can be seen in some early photographs, and no photos exist of the German leader in bathing suit attire revealing bodily skin. In later years; the tertiary stage of syphilis set in causing insanity. With the advent of penicillin; the bacterial scourge became treatable. There is speculation that the angry swastika on red was symbolic of a spirochete encased in a red field of blood -Hitler's attempt to communicate subtly that his blood had been infected or spoiled by the disease.

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Known and suspected notable syphilis-infected people in previous centuries--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis

Suspected case; died of syphilis --
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), poet †
Isabella Beeton (1836-1865), author of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management S
Karen Blixen (1885-1962), writer
Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage (1765-1805), poet †
António Botto (1897-1959), poet
Camilo Castelo Branco (1825-1890), writer
Beau Brummell (1778-1840), fashion arbiter
Al Capone (1899-1947), gangster †
Randolph Churchill, Lord (1849-1895), British statesman and father of Winston S. Churchill S
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545-1567), second husband of Mary Queen of Scots
Frederick Delius (1862-1934), composer †
Gaetano Donizetti (1797-184, composer
King Edward VI (1538-1553), King of England and third Tudor monarch S
Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889), poet S
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), painter †
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), poet †
King Henry VIII (1491-1547), King of England and second monarch of the Tudor dynasty S
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), German dictator
Howard Hughes (1905-1976), aviator, billionaire
Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584), Czar of Russia
Scott Joplin (1867/8-1917), composer †
Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), communist leader S
Édouard Manet (1832-1883), painter †
Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), writer †
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), nineteenth-century German philosopher S
Jack Pickford (1896-1933), actor †
Martin Alonzo Pinzon (1441-1493) captain of the Pinta †
Franz Schubert (1797-182, composer S
Robert Schumann (1810-1856), composer S
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884), Czech composer S
Tongzhi (1856-1875), ninth Manchu emperor in the Qing dynasty S
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), painter †
John Wilmot (1647-1680), 2nd Earl of Rochester, writer, debaucher S
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), writer S
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903), composer †
Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910), painter
Mary I, Queen of England and fourth monarch of the Tudor dynasty S
Ludwig van Beethoven, composer.