During the latter end of 1888 Nietzsche was even more than usually worried; sensitive old women, Wagnerians and all the little people were writing him abusive letters. Something had to go. Either angry people must leave him alone or the delicate filament of Nietzsche’s mind must snap. It had already been strained past endurance by his headaches and pains in the eye and incessant self-denial. The first symptom seems to have been that his Italian landlady noticed that Professor Nietzsche had suddenly taken to imbibing gigantic draughts of water. Suddenly, while he was walking near his home, he fell down in the street and could not get up again; that is to say, probably one of his cerebral arteries had gone into a state of spasm. His landlord found him and helped him home, where he lay for two days on a sofa in a lethargic, probably semi-conscious, state; he would not say a word nor answer questions. When he awoke to the world again he was deranged. He talked loudly to himself and would not allow people into his room, for he said he was composing an oratorio. He had always been interested in music. He began to write wild letters to his friends and relatives, accusing them of all sorts of silly things, but, be it observed, of nothing indecent. Then he began to accuse himself of fancied extravagance. When he met Professor Oberbeck he ran towards him and embraced him, saying, “My dear fellow, I hope you’ve brought me money; I’ve been living so extravagantly!” Nietzsche extravagant; a man who was a byword for asceticism and who did not even then realise the fame and fortune that was beginning to come to him! When they examined his papers they found 900 francs among them. They took him to Jena, where he was admitted to an asylum. Unhappily his friends had no specimen of his handwriting to assist the asylum doctors, and as it was before the days of the cerebro-spinal Wassermann test, it is not surprising that the poor doctors, driven to give the thing a name, hinted at general paralysis, though they seem to have eaten their words later.