What is it about?
In early 20th-century Vienna, syphilis was widespread and feared, nicknamed 'the Great Imitator' for its many disguises. Its cause, the bacterium Treponema pallidum, was discovered only in 1905, and the first effective drug, Salvarsan, arrived in 1910. Poverty, rapid urbanization and prostitution fuelled its spread, and the stigma was enormous. Many artists of the time suffered from it or drew inspiration from it. We looked closely at Gustav Klimt's painting 'Medicine', created for the University of Vienna, which portrays the cycle of life and death with a skeleton among entwined human bodies. Next to death stands a woman who shows three classic signs of syphilis: a collapsed 'saddle' nose, notched Hutchinson's teeth and patchy hair loss (syphilitic alopecia). We suggest that Klimt may have deliberately represented the burden of syphilis in Viennese society.
Featured Image
Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Iconodiagnosis, the medical reading of artworks, offers a vivid way to understand how diseases shaped culture and society. This analysis places Klimt within the broader story of syphilis in art and shows how an epidemic left its mark on one of the masterpieces of the Vienna Secession. It is also a reminder, for today's rise in syphilis cases, that stigma and silence have always been allies of sexually transmitted infections.
Perspectives
Medicine and art have always spoken to each other. Our group in Trieste, led in these historical projects by Omar Simonetti, enjoys looking at paintings with the eyes of infectious diseases physicians. Finding such precise clinical signs in Klimt's work was fascinating, and it shows how deeply syphilis was woven into the life of Vienna at the time.
Professor Stefano Di Bella
Universita degli Studi di Trieste
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A case of syphilis in Gustav Klimt’s Medicine? Iconodiagnosis and historical review, Ethics Medicine and Public Health, January 2026, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.jemep.2026.101290.
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