Medical records and handwritten letters documenting the final years of the notorious US gangster Al Capone, illustrating the mobster's struggle with dementia, are going on sale.
The astoundingly rich archive, spanning 1939-1947, reveals the untold story of the world's most famous mobster and his debilitating and irreversible mental collapse due to late-stage neurosyphilis.
A New England auctioneer is accepting bids on a cache of correspondence, photos, medical documents, including eye charts, as well as related bric-a-brac that, taken together, tell the tale of the dissolution and demise of Al Capone, 'Fox News' reported.
The trove boasts a signed photo of Capone, who once commanded the infamous organisation known as the "Chicago Outfit," private medical correspondence exchanged by the doctors principally charged with the mobster's late-life care.
It even includes a rare handwritten missive in which the the gangster requests of his doctor, "2 boxes (sic) of them red pills for bowels movement," according to the website of RR Auction House, which is overseeing the sale.
It is an, "exceptional archive originating from Capone's doctor-complete with a signed photo and a virtually nonexistent handwritten letter-and fascinating private medical correspondence which sheds light upon Capone's battle with neurosyphils," the auction house said.
Born on January 17, 1899, Capone died in January 1947 after his parole from an eight-year stint in stir spent, among other places, at the then-newly-opened Alcatraz Prison.
The twilight of his life was spent battling against a slow descent into dementia wrought by the syphilis he reportedly contracted early in life.
