Neurosyphilis : $b Modern systematic diagnosis and treatment presented in one hundred and thirty-seven case historiesSouthard, Elmer Ernest
Science
Neurosyphilis : $b Modern systematic diagnosis and treatment presented in one hundred and thirty-seven case histories
Southard, Elmer Ernest
Neurosyphilis
At 36 years of age, Friedberg waked up with pain one night, and found he
was unable to move his left leg or hand, and he felt his mouth drawn to
the left. Upon trying to get out of bed, he fell to the floor. In five
hours, however, he was entirely recovered, able to get up and walk
about, and to use his left arm quite normally. He went to sleep, but
upon waking up after an hour, discovered that his left side was again
paralyzed. After two weeks in a hospital, he was able to walk with a
crutch. The arm remained helpless for about a year. Both arm and leg
improved slowly for two years, after which time his condition had
remained stationary. For four years past, there had been no more pain,
but at 42—about two years before admission—the pains returned in his
legs, back, and side. At that time he received four injections of
salvarsan, mercury tablets, and potassium iodid. Three weeks before
admission to the hospital, Friedberg again began having headaches, very
much worse than formerly. At first these headaches were frontal, then
occipital, and there was a feeling as if something were growling inside
of the head. There was a feeling of pressure in front on the head and at
the base of the nose.
=Physically=, Friedberg appeared somewhat older than his assigned age.
There was a degree of general peripheral arteriosclerosis, but in
general the physical examination was negative. _Neurologically_, there
was a left hemiplegia with appropriate increase of the reflexes on that
side, spasticity, Babinski reflex, and an Oppenheim; the pupils reacted
properly; there was no Romberg reaction.
_Mentally_, Friedberg was entirely negative.
The W. R. of the blood serum was doubtful, as was that of the spinal
fluid. There were but two cells per cmm. and there was neither globulin
nor excess albumin in the spinal fluid.
The =differential diagnosis= might lie between cerebral hemorrhage and
syphilitic thrombosis. Thrombosis is much more common as a result of
syphilis than is hemorrhage. The occurrence of the thrombosis during
sleep without premonitory symptoms is also characteristic in syphilis.
Possibly there was a low-grade spinal meningitis at the bottom of the
lancinating pains. Whether the headache is an arteriosclerotic effect or
due to a meningitis not shown in the cerebrospinal fluid is doubtful.
However, the absence of inflammatory products in the cerebrospinal fluid
rather indicates that the headache is of arteriosclerotic origin.
Autopsies, however, warn us that we may have a localized meningitis in
various parts of the cranial cavity without the determination of any
inflammatory products in the spinal fluid.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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