Description

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... incurability. The case of a young man who contracted syphilis some fi-ve years ago, illustrates the nature of these lesions. The patient had an uncommon horror of the disease, and insisted upon being treated long after all symptoms had disappeared. He was thoroughly treated according to the most approved methods, and conscientiously obeyed the restrictions which his physician put upon him. After almost four years of constant treatment, he was finally persuaded to consider himself cured, and he unwillingly left the hands of his adviser. He had showed a negative Wassermann a very long time before he was discharged. Some six months later he noticed difliculty in vision and upon examination atrophy of the optic nerve was discovered. He is now rapidly going blind, still shows a systemic Wassermann, but a positive Wassermann with the spinal fluid. The parasyphilids are legion. They may affect the nails, the skin, the hair or the general health of the patient. Fournier would also include certain cases of glycosuria and epilepsy, as well as arterio-sclerosis with its matchless power of causing changes in any organ. The chief parasyphilids, however, are tabes dorsalis or locomotor ataxia, paresis, or general paralysis of the insane; and Erb's spastic spinal paralysis. These affections are characterized by their frequency, their fatality, their incurability, and their almost onstant association with syphilis. ( They are among the most terrible and overwhelming dis ases that afflict mankind, and through their incurable character have doubtless contributed much to the deep horror in which syphilis is popularly held. Occurring long years after the patient had supposed himself cured, occasioning almost unthinkable pain, as in the gastric or...