TIL Al Capone suffered from health issues due to complications from untreated Syphilis

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Sometime around 1920 (historians argue over the precise date), Capone stepped on the fast track to becoming a “made guy” when he was recruited by Johnny Torrio (whom Capone considered his mentor) to join “Big Jim” Colosimo’s crew in Chicago. The two later colluded to murder Big Jim so that Torrio could take over the Colosimo’s business.

It was Al Capone’s first job in Chicago, as a bouncer in one of Colosimo’s bordellos, where our medical story begins. Eager to partake in the business’s offerings, Capone sampled many of the prostitutes working there and, soon enough, contracted syphilis. Capone was too ashamed to seek out medical attention for his “venereal disease.” As a result, his disease was allowed to fester and progress in an unchecked manner.

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Syphilis has three major stages. The primary stage is heralded by a painless sore, or chancre. Because the infection is typically transmitted sexually, that sore is most commonly found on the genitals and appears anywhere from three to 90 days after exposure. After the chancre heals, the infected person then experiences a rash over all or much of the body. This secondary stage occurs four to 10 weeks after exposure. And then the infection goes quiet — without any symptoms or problems for years. But syphilis is merely fooling the infected individual that all is well. Over the next several years, the syphilis microbes are pathologically boring their way into various organs of the body, especially the liver, the heart and the brain. When the symptoms of this damage do appear (the third stage of syphilis), a decade or more after infection, it is typically too late to change the disease’s march toward killing the infected person.

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Capone’s life back “on the outside” was hardly a picnic. His physical and mental health continued to deteriorate and his syphilis worsened with each passing year until his death in Florida, of heart failure, on Jan. 25, 1947. He was only 48.

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Due to his failing health, Capone was released from prison on November 16, 1939,[105] and referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for the treatment of paresis (caused by late-stage syphilis). Hopkins refused to admit him on his reputation alone, but Union Memorial Hospital accepted him. Capone was grateful for the compassionate care that he received and donated two Japanese weeping cherry trees to Union Memorial Hospital in 1939. A very sickly Capone left Baltimore on March 20, 1940, after a few weeks of inpatient and a few weeks of outpatient care, for Palm Island, Florida.[106][107][108] In 1942, after mass production of penicillin was started in the United States, Capone was one of the first American patients treated by the new drug.[109] Though it was too late for him to reverse the damage in his brain, it did slow down the progression of the disease.[101]

In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist examined him and concluded that Capone had the mentality of a 12-year-old child.[62] Capone spent the last years of his life at his mansion in Palm Island, Florida, spending time with his wife and grandchildren.[110] On January 21, 1947, Capone had a stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve, but contracted bronchopneumonia. He suffered a cardiac arrest on January 22, and on January 25, surrounded by his family in his home, Capone died after his heart failed as a result of apoplexy.

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