In the Basel Clinic

On january 11, 1889, Franz Overbeck informed Nietzsche's only other remaining human contact, Heinrich Köselitz, that the previous day he had delivered Nietzsche,

He delivered his friend to the care of Dr. Ludwig Wille, whom Nietzsche recognised immediately. ‘I believe we have met’, he greeted Wille with the urbane dignity of a Basel professor, ‘but I am sorry to say that I have forgotten your name. Would you –’ ‘Wille, I am Wille’, replied the doctor. ‘Ah yes, Wille’, Nietzsche agreed. ‘You are a psychiatrist. Some years ago we had a conversation about religious insanity’. Clearly, though the recollection was perfectly correct, Nietzsche had no idea of where he was or why.

Wille diagnosed ‘progressive paralysis’, in other words, neurosyphilis, a diagnosis that was possibly encouraged by the fact that this was his research speciality. (To those good at hammering, it is said, everything is inclined to look like a nail.)

According to the patient records, Nietzsche's voluble conversation during his week in the asylum was a ‘colourful confusion of former experiences’ jumbled together ‘without logical connexion’.