The close relationship between the spirit and disease in the work of Thomas Mann is well known. Disease, far from being only a medical phenomenon, appears under certain conditions as a spiritual or, better, spiritualizing force which urges man, and above all the artist of genius, to overcome the limitations of common health and to raise himself to a new level of artistic experience and expression inaccessible to healthy-mediocrity. Mann never ignored the element of danger which is present in this adventurous contact with the ambiguity of life, hidden in disease. Following the romantic tradition, however, he shows such a high esteem for the productive impulse of illness that its perils are overshadowed by the positive value it has in the field of thought and art. In certain cases disease is supposed to serve the development of individual culture and literary genius. It may help to bring about another type of man, as superior to the average as the average man is to the animal, a type who represents a higher embodiment of the humanistic ideal.