Physically, Robinson was entirely negative, except for some hard glands in each groin. Mentally, there was little to show except depression, worry over his financial condition, and his inability to work. The serum W. R. proved negative.
Diagnosis: On the whole, the diagnosis of psychoneurosis (see case Harrison (9)) due to the shock at the time of the shipwreck seemed to be proper. To be sure, the patient gave a history of a chancre at 25, treated for two years, after which he was declared cured.
However, following up the clue of admitted syphilis, rigorous questioning elicited the fact that a few months before there had been diplopia, lasting part of a day.
Lumbar puncture seemed desirable. The fluid was clear but contained 125 cells per cmm. with appropriately increased amounts of albumin and globulin. The spinal fluid W. R. was positive. The diagnosis of Cerebrospinal Syphilis seemed established.
The lesson of this case appears to be that perhaps we should never exclude syphilis until we have made an examination of the cerebrospinal fluid. The W. R. of the blood in meningovascular (non-paretic syphilis) is negative in many cases (the figure is sometimes set as high as 40%).
Treatment: After a half dozen injections of salvarsan, all symptoms disappeared and Robinson went back to work, claiming to be in a better condition than for some time past.
1. How shall we explain such a symptom as the transient diplopia? This diplopia is probably an example of a neurorecidive, but it will be observed that it occurred without salvarsan therapy. See discussion above under the case of Bennett (34), where the general result of the neurorecidive inquiry launched by Ehrlich early in the history of salvarsan therapy showed that precisely similar phenomena had always occurred in neurosyphilis, whether under treatment or not. The anatomical and histopathological explanation of such phenomena is, of course, doubtful, but a review of the findings in the case of Alice Morton (1) will show how many apparently serious symptoms in neurosyphilitics are actually irritative or at least due to lesions which are entirely recoverable. We may suppose, first, a local proliferation of spirochetes; second, a local over-formation of toxic substances, directly or indirectly the product of spirochetosis; thirdly, a local exudation; fourthly, a local proliferation; fifthly, a combination of these phenomena, any or all of which may be regarded as but transient. We have sometimes found at autopsy very little exudate except in small areas; sometimes not more than a few mm. or cm. in superficial extent. Note, for example, the small areas of lymphocytosis demonstrable in but two foci in the case of Alice Morton, the paradigm placed at the beginning of this book.
NEUROSYPHILIS(?) in the SECONDARY STAGE of syphilis. HYSTERICAL symptoms. Diagnosis?
Case 46. Alice Caperson was a colored girl of 18 years. She had acquired syphilis five months before admission to the hospital, and the secondary symptoms of this syphilis had just disappeared before admission.
Very shortly after acquiring syphilis, the young negress began to act peculiarly. She describes herself as having a sort of nightmare, both when asleep and also when awake. For instance, she saw her dead grandmother. It appeared at first like a seraph; then it came nearer to her and seemed to fill out; and then was dressed precisely as her grandmother had been. This seraph appeared as though trying to tell her something, but she could not make out what the something was. The vision had appeared on two or three occasions.