Re: Archduke Otto
Posted by Cabri on 2/11/2016, 22:52:38, in reply to "
Archduke Otto"
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As a consequence of his sexual escapades he became infected with syphilis. At that time there was no effective treatment for this disease, a circumstance that condemned patients to lingering agony. The consequences of the infection in Otto’s case were so severe that he disappeared from public life: his nose became deformed and he had to wear a prosthesis made of rubber. His larynx began to disintegrate, a process that was extremely painful and resulted in an offensive odour from the putrefying tissue. Otto spent his last years in seclusion in a villa in Döbling, a well-to-do suburb of Vienna, looked after by ‘Sister Martha’, the pseudonym used by his last mistress, the operetta singer Louise Robinson, who remained faithful to him to the end. The only remaining contact with the imperial family was his step-mother, Archduchess Maria Teresa, who visited him regularly.
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