Alienist and Neurologist (Volume 14) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FARETIC DEMENTIA AND SYPHILIS. By ].s. G. Kiernan, M. D., Honorary President Section on Mental Diseases, Pan-American Congress; Fellow of the Chicago Academy of Medicine; Lecturer on Forensic Psychiatry, Kent Law School, of Chicago. QINCE the publication of my article, nearly a decade '' ago, on this subject increasing attention has been paid to it. Nearly all the contributions are permeated by the tendency to view this subject from the stand-point of syphilitic aetiology. I had analyzed a series of dicta and a single case; the analysis tending to show that demarcation of syphilitic dementia was impossible from either a clinical, therapeutic or prognostic stand-point. Savage,f while admitting that a large proportion of cases have not only a syphilitic history but a true syphilitic origin, cited some conclusive arguments against the luetic origin of paretic dementia. He cited the case of twin paretic dements who led totally different lives?one, sober and diligent; the other, intemperate and licentious. He, as Dr. Jacobson,|; of Copenhagen, points out, took substantially the same ground as I did anent the demarcation of syphilitic from non-syphilitic paretic dementia. Many tests have been suggested, but one of the most interesting is that of Minor, who has made a decidedly interesting analysis of 1842 Russian neuropaths. Of these 760 were Russians (496 males, 264 females) and 882 Jews (449 men and 433 females). Seven per cent. of the male Jews, three-two per cent. of the females were luetic ; twenty- five per cent. of the Russian males and eleven per cent. of the females were luetic. Six per cent. of the Russian males were tabetic. Of these ninety per cent. were luetic; twoand a half per cent. were paretic dements; of theseeighty per cent. luetic. One female was tabetic...