Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T02:56:04.042Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia: Suez and syphilis. Un canard dévoilé

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2007

Rae Duncan Laurenson*
Affiliation:
Aberdeen
*
Address for correspondence: Dr R. D. Laurenson, 2212 12 Avenue N.W., Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1K2.

Abstract

Frederick III (Crown Prince of Prussia, and Emperor of Germany) died of cancer of the larynx in 1888. In Drame Imperial (1888) journalist Jean de Bonnefon asserted that the disease was not cancer but syphilis which the Crown Prince acquired in 1869 in Suez. What de Bonnefon wrote about the prince does not coincide with the prince's itinerary published in the London Times. This discrepancy is examined and the reason for de Bonefon's claim is considered. The report that Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia caught syphilis in Suez is a canard.

Type
Historical Article
Copyright
Copyright © JLO (1984) Limited 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

d'Amat, R. (1954) Bonnefon (Marie Francois Joseph Jean de). In Dictionnaire de Biographie Francaise. Tome Sixieme. Librairie Letouzey et Ane, Paris, 999.Google Scholar
de Bonnefon, J. (1888) Drame Imperial: Ce que l'on ne peut pas dire a Berlin, Libraire de la Societe des Gens de Lettres. Paris, p 6.Google Scholar
Minnigerode, B. (1986) The disease of Emperor Frederick III. Laryngoscope 96 (2): 200203.Google Scholar
Muller-Bohn, H. (1900) Kaiser Friedrich der Gutige, Verlag. Berlin, p 320.Google Scholar
Pall Mall Gazette (1869) The opening of the Suez canal. 30 Nov: 11.Google Scholar
Pall Mall Gazette (1888) The expulsion of french journalists from Berlin. 23 Jun: 11.Google Scholar
Poschinger, M. von (1898) Life of the Emperor Frederick, (English edition), (Whitman, S., ed.), (revised 1901) Harper and Bros., New York/London, pp 310311.Google Scholar
Reid, M. (1987) Ask Sir James, Hodder and Stoughton. London, p 261.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R. Scott (1946) Morell Mackenzie, William Heinemann Medical Books Ltd, London, p 166.Google Scholar
London Times (1869a) The Crown Prince of Prussia. 19 Oct: 5 (column a).Google Scholar
London Times (1869b) Egypt. 17 Nov: 10 (column a).Google Scholar
London Times (1888) Latest intelligence Germany. 20 Mar: 5 (column b).Google Scholar