CHARACTERISTIC OF SYPHILIS

Francisco VALIENTE

Translated from the Spanish by J. PHILLIPS, M.D.

 [H. RECORDER, MAY 1941]

MENTAL SYMPTOMS THAT SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED:

         Loss of memory; loses remembrance of past happenings, names, dates; while all the former happenings anterior to the disease are remembered clearly and distinctly and hardly without an effort.  Very nervous, cries without motive.  Bad humored, irritable, peevish.  Irritable and excited, walks most of the time, does not wish to be calmed; violent when opposed, seems to be proximate to a convulsion; hare brained, distracted, is continually washing his hands.  Is calm for a little while.  Lives silent, suddenly is seen to make for his bedroom; a detonation is heard; he has committed suicide.

         Periodic neuralgia in the head; very discouraged, does not believe he will ever get better.

         Sensation as if he were going to become insane or paralyzed; retired, reticent, with apathy and indifference in respect to the future; difficult to make arithmetical calculations.

         Horrible fear of the night, by reason of the mental and physical exhaustion that he experiences upon awakening, because in certain stages of the syphilitic his worst enemy is the night.  He retires about 2 a.m., awakes with an indescribable anxiety, bathed in a copious sweat.  The suffering is intolerable.  Believes he is going to die.  He fears to prepare for the night on account of the possible suffering and if he has Psora the sleeplessness complicates his case still more.

         Great difficulty and sometimes impossibility in concentrating the mind on special subjects; nevertheless he remembers consecutive happenings, details that occurred 25 or 30 years previously, in the order of presentation and without any difficulty; but he cannot remember the names of persons, places and titles of books.

         They daily relate that such-and-such person has committed suicide.  They found him on the floor in a pool of blood and a revolver in his hand.  A note is found revealing the cause of his determination—jealousy, been slighted by his fiancée, etc.  Lies!  The jealousy was only incidental: the predisposing cause was THAT ACCURSED SYPHILIS—HAHNEMANN’s second Miasm.

         The only Miasm that generates valor sufficient to commit suicide is Syphilis, because of the indescribable anguish and loathing of life that it produces.  Tendency to suicide; always talking about shooting himself.  To his aunts or his sisters he says: “One of these days I will kill you all and kill myself.”  Silent, you see him arranging his things without saying what he is going to do.  Everyone is surprised to hear that he killed himself.  He jumped into the river, or from some high place, or shot himself through the temples.

         There is one symptom that is notable but not mental, and that is the irresistible desire to drink alcohol.  It is his weakness, the great need he feels for a stimulant.  Alcohol is his best friend, so the syphilitic feels.

         Obtuse in comprehension, low mental state; ugly, malicious, destructive, homicidal, suicidal.  For many years he has harbored the idea to destroy himself.  Does not tell anyone, but in cold-blooded premidatation destroys himself, takes his life.

         He has marked irritability, an aversion to those who are intimately associated with his family, or to his business companions.  He is critical, jealous, destructive, malign, vengeful; he maintains certain grades of antisocial conduct.

         These patients live constantly under a moral perversion and you see them frequently washing their hands.  This represents a profound depravity, a state of corruption unconsciously accepted.  They have a desire to wash their temples, a factor seen in the gradual destruction of brain cells, in paresis.

         Man has an inherent need of being clean and social, to be able to associate with his fellow citizens and be respected.  The compensation of the internal fight is the hardness of mind, the gradual decay in the process of destruction.  He soon retires to some secluded spot and hangs himself.

         Aphasia, difficulty in finding words; debility: Sycosis and Syphilis.

         Pains that last from sunset to sun up; begin with twilight and end with dawn.  All pains are worse at night, from night fall to sunrise.  The pains increase and decrease gradually, are erratic and require frequent change of position.

         Headache that come on at night, boring and settling in a determined spot, painful many times to pressure.  Propagation of paralysis in a cerebral nerve and its surroundings.  Psychic disorders, etc.

         Headaches of a neuralgic character that causes insomnia and delirium at night, begins at 4 PM and is worse at 10 or 11 PM and ceases at break of day.  Headache with sea-sickness, intolerable pains, the arteries leading to the head congested and pulsating violently.

         A lancinating pain in the occiput that causes insomnia at night and ceases with the light of the day.  Gravitative, contusive, incisive pains from one part of the base of the cerebellum to the other.  Head pain passing from one temple to the other, and vertically in the form of the letter T.  Headache lasting many months, sharp, oppressive, over the right eye and penetrating deeply as it were into the brain.

         The hair falls out abundantly.

         Chronic blistery infection, periodically, of the cornea, successive outbreaks of vesicles on the epithelial cap of the cornea with photophobia.  Interstitial keratitis, swollen eyes, closed lids; from them pus oozes; night aggravation: Syphilis and Sycosis.  Sensation as if a current of cold air were blowing on the eye.  Left ocular globe covered with a fungus vegetation, with pains that are worse at night: Syphilis and Sycosis.  Iritis with photophobia, congestion of the conjuctiva and the sclerotic, with swelling, chemosis, supra-orbital pain.

         Ophthalmia acuta of the new-born, with the eyelids swollen during sleep and intensely painful at night: Syphilis with Sycosis.  In the eyes: ptosis; paralysis of the superior oblique, sleepy aspect from falling of the eyelids.  Diplopia, they set one image below the other.

         Abscess in the left ear exuding a large quantity of pus: Syphilis and Sycosis.  A scarce humor, acrid, watery, that flows from time to time from the ears without deafness; Syphilis and Psora.  Deafness that increases gradually until the patient hears nothing.

         Caries of the nasal bones, palate and septum, with perforation.  Nose completely obstructed with burning.  Nasal secretion fetid, thick and of a yellowish-green color: Syphilis and Sycosis.

         Teeth that decay along the edge of the gums; edges like a saw.

         Excessive flow of saliva from the mouth during sleep (if it is not from taenia).  Hypertrophy of the amygdale that has grown chronic. Pharyngitis, acute, with night aggravations.  Sore throat with granulations.  Chancrous ulcers of the Pharynx.

         Total loss of appetite, for months, nothing satisfies, vomitings covering weeks and months due to the superficial ulceration of the membrane that covers the stomach.

         Rebellious constipation over a period of years; the rectum seems to be obstructed.  If they use enemas, they experience childbirth pains.  After the movement, exhaustion and weakness.  Fissures in the anus and rectum, prolapse of the rectum.  Indurated ulcers in the orifice of the anus, somewhat excoriated, with itching: Syphilis and Psora.

         Frequent desire to urinate all night long from 7 P.M. until 5 A.M.  (Chronic interstitial nephritis, Syphilis and Sycosis.)

         Ulcer in the prepuce, on the corona glandis, elevated edges, inside base covered with a lardaceous substance; does not pain or present any sensation.  Glans is of a purple color, with an exudation.  Purple bubo in the groin the size of pigeon’s egg, with nocturnal sweat and continuous pain in the thigh.  Lancinating pain in one groin at night.  Pemphigus that appears like a variola pustule.

         Leucorrhoea profuse, soaking through the clothes and towels and reaching to the heels.  This leucorrhoea is equal to that produced by the Alum used in the aqueducts.  Poor suffering humanity!

         Lancinating heart pains from the base to the apex, at night.  (When the heart pain is from the apex heart up-ward to the base it is Sycosis.)

         Attacks of Asthma during twenty-five years, presenting itself only nights with nervous insomnia; with insomnia for a space of days and nights.

         Caries of the dorsal vertebrae; Syphilis and Psora.  Enlargement of the cervical ganglia; hypertrophy of ganglia in different parts of the body: Syphilis and Psora.

         Rheumatism of the articulation of the shoulder; severe pains in the long bones; nocturnal aggravation.  Osteosarcoma in the center of the right tibia the size of a half ostrich egg, sharp nocturnal pains.  Sensation of a painful contraction in the soles of the feet.  Abscess of the Psora, with violent nocturnal pains.  Sciatica with night aggravation, bone pains in the knee and feet.  Rheumatism, the muscles are indurated, forming knots; violent pains in the lower extremities.

         Syphilitic blisters that exude an abundant quantity of humor in the cheeks, chin, ears, scalp and other parts.  Pemphigus similar to the variola pustule and often confluent; skin bluish.  Vitiligo (proven by Dr. MILAN  of Paris).  Pustular eruptions in different parts of the body; these pustules open, secreting an ichorous humor.  After the chancre disappears a pustulous eruption.  Every fistula has for its cause Syphilis and Psora.  If it gives out a fetid pus: Syphilis, Psora and Sycosis.  The nails fall or break in pieces; dirty yellow color.

         Insomnia that is absolute covering a period of fourteen day and nights.

         Extreme debility and prostration in the morning.  Extreme weakness; can hardly raise his hands; weak, emaciated.

         Epilepsy.  Convulsions that come on at night.  Epilepsy after the menses.  Sensation of numbness in the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, in which they experience a sensation of pinchings as though the numb part were pierced with many needles.

         Syphilis constitutes a morbific entity that is nothing less than a virulent Miasm.  Chronic syphilitics are more difficult to cure if they have allopathized with “914”, Mercurius and Bismuth.

         Behold the signs of congenital Syphilis as brought out by the diagnostic system of Dr. ABRAMS:

1.     Nasal Catarrh of the recent born (snuffles).

2.     Marked depression in or at the root of the nose.

3.     Cutaneous lesions.

4.      Fissures in the corners of the mouth (rhagades).

5.     Alopecia (hair of the head and eyebrows).

6.     Late development.

7.     Deformed teeth.

8.     Interstitial Keratitis.

9.     Affections of the ears.  Syphilis of the column similar to Potts’disease.