Gaston Vorberg

Gaston Vorberg (1875-1947) was a German physician, medical historian and sexologist. He also translated Latin and Italian texts into German.

Vorberg was born on 23 January 1875 in Cologne. He studied medicine at the University of Freiburg and completed his studies in 1903 with a doctoral thesis on the clinical differential diagnosis of cerebrospinal multiple sclerosis. He worked as a doctor specialized in nervous and emotional disorders in Munich and later distinguished himself in the field of sex research. He also used the pseudonym, 'Montanus'.

Vorberg wrote several medical books, for instance, an advice for nervous people (1919) and a study on the origin of syphilis (1924), in which he endeavoured to demonstrate that syphilis was already at home in Europe before the discovery of America and that only Emperor Maximilian's 'Blasphemy Edict' of 1495 stamped the disease as a "previously unknown" serious epidemic. He also dealt with the harlots of Venice in his ''Venezianischer Dirnenspiegel'' (1923), a kind of counterpart to William Hogarth's ''A Harlot's Progress''. His book on sex life in ancient times (1925) dealt with Greek and Roman customs.

Vorberg also wrote a study on Guy de Maupassant's disease (1908) and in 1933 he described Friedrich Nietzsche's illness as syphilis plus psychopathy in the manner of the "Polish rumor." In his essay about spoilers of language and gossips (1917) he compared Gottfried Benn, the author of the experimental drama ''Karandasch'', with the inhabitant of a madhouse. Furthermore, he translated masterpieces of neo-Latin love poetry into German (1920).

Vorberg died in 1947. Provided by Wikipedia