Obviously, in breeding was an issue - hemophilia, Hapsburg jaw, etc.

Is anyone aware of a study to see how prevalent syphilis was among the aristocracy, as it headed into collapse?

I wonder how much of the more inane actions of the Victorian era, headed into WWI, could have been the result of the tertiary effects of it.

That’s an interesting idea and question. None of the histories of the period I’ve ever read mentioned anything like what you’re proposing, and given the slightly titillating subject, I would expect that it would be discussed if any historian were aware of it.

From my personal perspective, I don’t believe that the events leading up to World War I were insane, and especially not in the sense of the sort of severe cognitive defects that tertiary syphilis reportedly causes (not that I’m an authority on the disease). If anything, the people whose decisions led to the war probably thought that they were acting completely rationally, or at least believed that they had little choice but to honor the commitments based on decisions prior to their time. We must keep in mind that before the war few national leaders and policy makers—or even the man on the street—had any clear idea of what a war was going to be like, and therefore there was a lot of support for a war in some places such as Germany.

If I were going to describe any march toward war as being insane, it would have been World War II. But even that would be an exaggeration. In my opinion the decisions and acts that were made and not made that led to that war were in retrospect much easier to identify and wonder at. But those people were not insane either. Chamberlain, for example, is vilified to this day as exercising poor judgment, and although I agree, he was far from alone in making and promoting bad decisions. Plus, bad judgment can be due to insanity, but mostly it’s not, and in his case I can somewhat follow and understand his thinking that led to his bad decisions without resorting to insanity as a cause.

Tertiary syphillis is pretty obvious. Capone in later life was using a fishing pole in his Miami pool.

It might be argued aristocrats are still with us ... kleptocrats, 'the elites', oligarchs, 'old money', 'House of Lords', etc.

Not sure what event(s) you are looking for background on. If, as surmised above, it is the events leading up to WWI, those don't need syphilis to explain them. Several good books lay those out, most recently I've read an excellent book by Barbara Tuchman, "The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World before the War, 1890-1914", which I highly recommend for anyone interested in more background on those events.

“The Guns of August” by the same author is also an excellent treatise on the lead up to WW1.

If anyones interested, I’ll find the name of the book I read on the Romanovs.

It read like the Romanovs, Hapsburgs, and some of the German aristocracy just became utter degenerates.

I read from other sources that syphilis was very common among the English upper/upper middle classes, in the Victorian era.

WWI was so utterly idiotic, I suppose it’s human nature to look for an excuse other than “people are bastards”