Syphilis of the brain and spinal cord, showing the part which this agent plays in the production of paralysis, epilepsy, insanity, headache, neuralgia, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and nervous derangements / by Thomas Stretch Dowse.

  • Dowse, Thomas Stretch.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Syphilis of the brain and spinal cord, showing the part which this agent plays in the production of paralysis, epilepsy, insanity, headache, neuralgia, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and nervous derangements / by Thomas Stretch Dowse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SYPHILIS OF THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. CHAPTER 1. History and Nature of Syphilis. There can be no doubt that syphilis,* although it was not recognised as an especial and characteristic disease until the end of the fifteenth century, yet existed even at a much earlier period, t We first find French writers directing attention to this malady about the year 1490, and from that time until now, it has presented a constant theme, for discussion and argument, amongst the most learned members of the medical profession ; and, indeed, there can scarcely be found a writer of note in European medical literature, who has not advanced some theory concerning its nature. The first treatise written in the English language upon ' Lues Venerea' was by Wm. Clowes, one of her Majesty's chirurgeons (1596), who mentions that he had known divers persons infected with it, who were free from any disease of the organs of generation. At the end of the last century, amongst the many distinguished * As to the etymology of the word ' Syphilis,' we are indebted to Fracastor, who was the first to make use of it, and who says its origin is to be found in the following mythical story. ' Syphilis,' who was King Alcithoo's shepherd, having insulted Heaven by vaunting the riches of his master, the Creator afflicted with ' humours' those who raised altars to the monarch, and covered them with ' pustules and ulcers,' the pain of which deprived them of all sleep. The people ever after called this plague by the name of the impious wretch who provoked it. t M. Littre mentions having found allusion to syphilis in a writer of the thir- teenth century, and a correspondent in the Brit. Med. Joitrnal of January 23, 1875, suggests that reference is made to this disease in the 38th Psalm of David.