Five cases of cerebral symptoms in early (secondary) syphilis / by F.B. Greenough.

  • Greenough, Francis Boott.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Five cases of cerebral symptoms in early (secondary) syphilis / by F.B. Greenough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    says: “The first notions with regard to the cere- bral symptoms in cases of syphilis date back very far. Fracas tor and Nicolas Massa even say decid- edly that the French disease may lw* accompanied by insanity and epilepsy.” On the other hand, Heubner, in his very complete article in Ziemssen’s ('velopredia on “ Syphilis of the Brain and Nervous System,” says: “ Although Fracas tor descrified so graphically the ravages of syphilis on the face, etc., he knew nothing of the internal diseases of the same patients.” Ife also states that this lack of knowledge with regard to syphilis of the nervous system was doe, in part, to the fact that the old practitioners occupied themselves chiefly with symp- tomatology and therapeutics. This may be very well as far as the Middle Ages go. but when we see that John Hunter classed the nervous system as one of the vital parts which are not at all susceptible to the action of syphilis, and that Hieord, in his clas- sical “ letters on Syphilis, does not refer to this subject, it certainly looks as though not many cases of the kind I am aliout to report could have come under their observation. As late as l*fil I*rofeasor I.ai»&gue, as the result of his inves- tigations, reported to the Faculty of Medicine in l aris that “ the nervous manifestations of syphilis are rare, indistinct, and destined, at least until fur- ther investigation, to figure in an account of syph- ilis as an appendix. It was just about this time, that is, 1 MSI—62, according to Heubner, that scientific investigations with regard to cerebral syphilis began to l>e made. The monographs of I>eon Gros, La li- ce rea ax, and 1/ftmbuco marked out the path for study, and they were followed in Germany by Jakah ami many others. Fournier in 1*70 published his “Syphilis du ( erveau, which, while it may not be