Tertiary Period of Syphilis.
The tertiary period of Syphilis is the longest in duration and the most dangerous stage of the disease. It gradually succeeds the secondary active period of Syphilis and lasts, if not treated thoroughly, for many years, and sometimes thru the entire life.
The main characteristic of this period is that its lesions (sores) are fewer, but they are very deep and penetrate to the most vital and important organs, such as blood vessels, heart, spinal cord, and brain. This is the time when syphilitic germs, after a long period of apparent cure of the disease, suddenly renew their destructive activity and strike down their victim with some permanently crippling and incurable chronic disease. It has been mentioned before that Syphilis does not spare a single part or organ or tissue of the body. Anywhere, in the deepest recesses of the most vital and life-bearing centers of the body, a tumor of tertiary Syphilis can form, so-called Gumma, that has a natural tendency to break down, forming an ulcer and leading to a terrible destruction of tissues.
We shall not tire the reader by a detailed description of the possible results of this destruction of the body; it is sufficient to say that death is a welcome relief to the crippled, palsied, and insane victims of advanced Tertiary Syphilis. We shall mention only two diseases that are definitely proven to be after-results of Syphilis—diseases that are both incurable and that count as their victims countless thousands of men all over the world.
The first, a progressive paralysis, a chronic, progressively increasing insanity, that draws out for many years and invariably ends fatally, after a long agony of physical and mental decay and waste.
The second disease is Locomotor Ataxia, a chronic, slowly-spreading decay of the spinal cord, in which are located the most important nerves controlling the sensation and locomotion of the body. As the result of the slow death of these nerves, a man is gradually transformed into a helpless and hopeless paralytic, doomed to stay bedridden for life.
Any and all complications of Tertiary Syphilis can arise and strike down a man in a most insidious and unexpected manner. The most dangerous and deceiving feature of syphilitic lesions is that they develop painlessly and without acute distress or discomfort to the patient, who becomes aware of the disease only after a considerable amount of tissue is destroyed and irreparable damage has been done. No man who has a syphilitic chancre is safe from a possibility of development of complications of Tertiary Syphilis unless his blood, after repeated tests, has been pronounced pure and free from syphilitic poisons.