Sexual disease and its medical prevention / by H.N. Robson.

  • Robson, H. N.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sexual disease and its medical prevention / by H.N. Robson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    49/118 page 39
    power or control; and is due to a degeneration of the posterior columns of the spinal cord, which may occur in those who have acquired syphilis, or in those whose parents have had it. The nervous disorders are numerous, widespread, and comprise pain in the limbs, loss of knee-jerk, affection of the eyes known as Argyll-Robertson pupil, mus- cular inco-ordination of the lower extremities causing an unsteady gait, loss of feeling, sexual power, and control of the urine and faeces. In fact the patient is sometimes in a deplorably miserable condition, and often suffers from severe pains in the limbs and internal organs, whilst deafness, paralysis of the vocal cords, severe headache, and apoplectiform or epileptiform attacks may occur. It is only in the present generation that this disease has been discovered to be a sequela of syphilis; and a house surgeon at the Lock Hospital, London, had a unique experience. He treated three of his friends—all of them medical students —for syphilis, with iodide of mercury, with apparently good results. All three had excellent health for a long period, then two developed loco- motor at the end of twenty years, and the third after twenty-four years. It is not often that patients can be kept under observation like these were.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3