MDMD(4): Equation, p. 134

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Matthew P. Wiener writes:
> Andrew Dinn writes:

> >Newton too was somewhat mad in his later years, thanks to liberal
> >doses of mercury taken as a cure against teh venereal disease he
> >imagined he had caught from consorting with prostitutes in his
> >youth.

> So far as anyone knows, Newton lived and died a virgin.  The mercury
> poisoning he is believed to have suffered from would have been from
> his numerous alchemical experiments.

The little I had read - second-hand, from a newspaper review of a
biography, for what it is worth (not much from the sound of it) - had
it that he thought he believed he had caught venereal disease from
prostitutes but that he could not have done because he never had
sexual relations with one. In other words it was his paranoia which
caused him to apply the mercury. I recall the biographer offering this
as an `explanation' of the poisoning in contradiction of the previous
asumption that it was his experiments with alchemy. I take it your
explanation is more commonly accepted.

> >       From the little I have read about his life this cosmological
> >obsession was at the core of his insanity.

> Read a little bit more.  His insanity took the form of very strange
> moods and liberal amounts of paranoia.  Having a cosmic vision in
> itself, derived from his own astounding scientific successes, is
> nowhere close to insanity.

No, it isn't. But, as I said, the biog under review implied that his
madness centred around some rather wacko mix of astrology and
astronomy, and also manifested, I recall now that you mention it, in
an interest in alchemy. It also suggested that the mercury was
probably what drove him to such potty conclusions. What would you
recommend by way of further reading?


Andrew Dinn
-----------
We drank the blood of our enemies.
The blood of our friends, we cherished.