The Documented Chronology That RF Hurt Hertz

The historical timeline shows a healthy 29-year-old who began high-power spark-gap work in late 1886 and was virtually incapacitated within five to six years – dead in 7 years

The documented chronology

1. Autumn 1886 → 1889 – Heavy spark-gap experiments at Karlsruhe
   Hertz’s dipole-antenna rig pulsed ≈30 kV across a centimetre spark gap “between two zinc spheres,” and he kept iterating on it through 1889.Wikipedia

2. 1889 – First warning signs
   MacTutor notes that by 1889 Hertz’s chronic facial pain was so bad he “had all his teeth removed in an attempt to cure the persistent condition.”Maths History

3. Early 1892 – Collapse
   The same source records that pain in his “throat and nose became so intense that he could no longer work.” Multiple surgeries (mastoidectomy, radical maxillary-sinus openings) bought only months of relief.Maths History

4. Summer 1892–Jan 1894 – Terminal phase
   A detailed medical reconstruction in Laryngo-Rhino-Otologie (Feldmann 2005) shows progressive necrotising sinusitis, otitis, nephritis and paralysis consistent with granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener’s).PubMed

He died on 1 January 1894, aged 36.

So the span really is about five years

That’s a < 6-year arc from first sustained RF exposure to near-fatal disability, matching the latency windows