Mental affections : an introduction to the study of insanity / by John Macpherson.

Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mental affections : an introduction to the study of insanity / by John Macpherson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    27/400 (page 11)
    months after birth, the syphilitic inheritance reveals itself by defective development, slowness of growth, late teething, late walking and speaking, and if they live on till puberty, the tardy development of the breasts and the late appear- ance of menstruation in females, and the late development of the beard in males. Hereditary syphilitic subjects are usually, even at adult age, stunted and atrophied, and accord- ing to Fournier infantilism is one of its best known charac- teristics. The affection may also manifest itself as a congenital malnutrition of certain parts of the body or its organs, which are arrested in development. Thus, the testicles, the breasts, or the ovaries may remain atrophied; and the development of the brain may be arrested in various ways, resulting in idiocy, epilepsy, imbecility, or simple weak-mindedness. According to Lannelongue and Fournier, syphilis in the parents is a frequent cause of various bodily malformations of a congenital nature, such as club foot, malformation of the fingers, spinabifida, cleft palate, harelip, cranial asymmetry, microcephalism, and hydrocephalism.1 An important action of hereditary syphilis is its tend- ency to produce a disordered nutrition, characterised by an impoverished state of the system, and an enfeebled condition of the tissues, which reduces their resistive power, and forms a predisposition towards other diseases. Hereditary syphilitic children are particularly subject to diseases of the nervous system, and a large proportion of them die of convulsions and meningitis. They are also predisposed to certain diathetic conditions, especially to rickets and scrofulo-tubercular affec- tions. Consequently, the subjects of hereditary syphilis are particularly subject to caries of bones, to Pott’s disease, and to lupus. Finally, most of these cases present an enfeebled constitution, a lowered resisting power, a gray or earthy complexion, and a marked tendency towards diseases of the lymphatic system. Mental impairment is one of the com- monest symptoms, which is not to be wondered at, consider- ing the frequency witli which the nervous system is attacked by the syphilitic virus. The forms in which mental affec- tion usually manifests itself have been classified as follows : 1 Fournier, loc. cit.