TABETIC NEUROSYPHILIS (“tabes dorsalis”) is often quite ATYPICAL clinically and may even show no single symptom warranting the old clinical name “locomotor ataxia.”
Case 30. Stephen Green is a case of Tabes Dorsalis with active knee-jerks and without locomotor or muscle-sense disorder. When observed at the age of 45, it appeared that there were but two complaints: lack of control of the vesical sphincter and shooting pains in the legs. It appeared that the urinary disorder dated back ten years, when there had been difficulty in passing the urine. Sounds had been passed at the time; occasionally there had been incontinence during after years, ascribed by Mr. Green to the passing of the sound. However, the physician at that time stated that the incontinence was a symptom of tabes dorsalis. The incontinence had recently become worse, especially marked at night, though also occurring in the day; much worse during excitement, and very much worse after taking alcoholic drinks. Besides incontinence, there is also difficulty at times in passing the urine, as well as dysuria.
As for the pains in the legs, they had been first noticed some three or four years ago and considered to be mild rheumatic effects. Now, however, they have grown progressively worse and have been the effective cause of giving up business. The pains are sharp, darting, pinching, and burning, and last, say, about a second with an interval of about the same length. The attack will continue sometimes for many hours.
There is a strabismus of the left eye, ascribed by the patient to an accident with an umbrella (there had been operation without relief). The pupils showed the Argyll-Robertson effect and were markedly irregular. Despite the divergent strabismus with diplopia, the eye movements were well performed although not in parallel axes. Ankle-jerks could not be obtained even on reinforcement, but the knee-jerks were lively, and the other deep and skin reflexes proved normal. The blood and spinal fluid tests were characteristic of tabes dorsalis.
It appears that the syphilis was acquired by this patient 15 years before; that is, 5 years before neurological symptoms began. Three courses of treatment had been taken at a well-known watering-place, and mercury pills had been taken for two years by mouth. The patient is married; has no children; there have been no pregnancies.
1. What causes may be assigned for the absence of children in the family of a tabetic? There may be lesions of the genital apparatus (orchitis, or more specialized toxic lesions). But impotence such as characterized the present case must also be taken into account.
2. What is the therapy for tabetic pains? Pyramidon is nowadays much in favor; morphine may be used; some authors recommend that the patients be instructed to chloroform or etherize themselves slightly for relief of the pain. Surgery of the nerve roots may be resorted to in extreme cases. Intraspinous therapy, suggested by various authors, seems to exert beneficial effect in many cases.
3. Is the lack of control of the vesical sphincter an unusual initial symptom? On the contrary, the more careful the clinical observation, according to some observers, the more likely is the examiner to find that vesical symptoms were the earliest or among the earliest complaints of the patient. Baldwin Lucke found sphincter disturbances to be initial in 8¼% of his long Blockley series. He found sphincter disturbance to occur in some stage of the disease in 67.6%, being exceeded in frequency only by staggering gait (87.2%) and lancinating pain (71.6%). According to Lucke, the most frequent initial symptom is lancinating pain in the lower extremity, which, it will be noticed, occurred also in our case of Stephen Green as an initial symptom along with vesical disturbance. Lucke’s figures show that paresthesia of the lower extremities (17.6%) and weakness of the extremities (16.4%) are the next initial symptoms in frequency.
4. Could the early treatment in the case of Stephen Green be considered as adequate? No better answer can be given to this question than by quoting from Dr. Joseph Collins,[[8]] who probably has done more than any other one man in this country in insisting on the need of proper treatment of syphilis. As to the adequate treatment of syphilis he says:
“It consists in the proper use of salvarsan and mercury begun at the earliest possible moment after infection and kept up till all biochemical evidence of the disease has ceased, while the metabolism of the individual is maintained as nearly normal as possible. But the physician does not do his whole duty when he has accomplished this. He must solicitously watch the individual to see that no evidence reappears for months and even years after the apparent cure. As an index of such reappearance the Wassermann test of the blood serum and of the cerebrospinal fluid is the safest guide.