Constitutional syphilis : being a practical illustration of the disease in its secondary and tertiary phases / by James George Beaney.

  • Beaney, James George, 1828-1891.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Constitutional syphilis : being a practical illustration of the disease in its secondary and tertiary phases / by James George Beaney. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in the walls of which were found well-marked deposits of syphilitic degeneration. The ascending portion of the aortic arch was also dilated, and its lining membrane seemed to be undergoing the process of syphilitic ulceration. This is only one of the many cases in which the heart has bstrayed the syphilitic lesion. I have seen several of the same kind in the army, in venereal hospitals at home, and on the continent. I may also mention that I opened the body of a man who had died from syphilitic disease of the bones of the skull in the Melbourne Hospital, and found the air passages, velum-palati, liver, and heart, bearing testimony to the fearful ravages of syphilis. Case^L.—Syphilitic disease of the heart. Incompetency of tlie mitral valve, with hypertrophy of the left ventricle, and dilatation of tlie arch of the aorta. A gentleman from Bombay consulted me two years ago on account of palpitation of the heart, and shortness of breath, from which he says he has suffered for twelve months. He said that four years previously he contracted both chancre and bubo, for which he was treated in India, and he thought he was cured, until three years later, when secondary syphilis appeared on the body, and his hair fell off. For these symptoms he was treated with the mercurial vapour bath, and the spots disappeared; but from that time he has felt his health and strength fast failing. When seen by me, I noticed that, although his breathing was much embarrassed, the stethoscope disclosed no disease of the lungs or air passages, and I looked, therefore, for the cause in the organs of circulation. The percussion note, which was dull, measured three inches transversely, and auscultation dis- covered over the region of the heart a murmur, like the sound of a bellows, synchronous with the first sound at the apex,