Catching syphilis

[hurworth]

I've not paid much attention to syphilis until now, as I have found some WW1 medical records for an ancestor's brother.  He received a pension for a few years after discharge.

It's a little unclear what the dates are referring to but in a report written in 1918 it states he had had syphilis 45 years ago.   I have his date of birth as 1864 but the army record says 1860.  Either way, if it was 45 years ago he wasn't a teenager yet.

So, I'm left wondering whether he was born with it or whether it wasn't 45 years ago.

His main symptoms causing his medical discharge are shortness of breath and palpitations.  His heart sounds are somewhat irregular.  But he is almost 50. One of his records says his disability is Arterial Sclerosis due to O.M.S.  After a few years he is declared well again and his pension is stopped.

What sort of things might provide clues as to when he was infected please?

[Alex Edge]

Have you considered the effects of chlorine or mustard gas?  My uncle was severely debilitated from mustard gas warfare when he returned to his parents farm in 1919.  It was 1922 before he was sufficiently recovered to begin working on the farm. 

Alex

[hurworth]

Thanks Alex. 

He was in the Labour Company of the Royal Fusliers and was in England, so unlikely to have been exposed to gas.

[sharonmx5]

I have someone in the family dying in 1906 from general paralysis 3 years.  His army records indicate that he caught syphilis when he was about 18 years old, being hospitalised several times with primary and secondary symptoms.  He married in his late twenties and had three children quickly; the period of no children after that corresponds with his period of illness.  His wife lived into her sixties with no apparent sign of the illness and all three children likewise lived into old age with no sign that they suffered affects of this illness.  I guess they must have been born during a period of dormancy and this was the cause that all of them escaped this infection.

[iolaus]

It's a little unclear what the dates are referring to but in a report written in 1918 it states he had had syphilis 45 years ago.   I have his date of birth as 1864 but the army record says 1860.  Either way, if it was 45 years ago he wasn't a teenager yet.

So, I'm left wondering whether he was born with it or whether it wasn't 45 years ago.

I wonder if instead of 45 years ago it's written after he (or someone) SAID four to five years ago and it was heard as 45 and written as such

[mgeneas]

I have ancestor who may be a candidate for syphilis (it didn't occur to me before)
He was born 1822, married 1843, died 6 moths later of 'Paralysis' and a posthumous son was born 3 months later.
The son seems to have escaped, he lived until at least 1901 married and had 5 children.
The young widow lived to be 77.

[hurworth]

I wonder if instead of 45 years ago it's written after he (or someone) SAID four to five years ago and it was heard as 45 and written as such

That could be it.  I don't think the syphilis was considered medically relevant to his symptoms as it is mentioned just the once in this document and not in his other military documents.

What does make me wonder though is that when he was in his twenties his mother died of paralysis and pneumonia in an asylum.  She'd been there for about a decade.

[BenRalph]

My great great grandfather died of paralytica in Menston hospital in 1927. I've got his notes from the hospital, and everything seems to tally up with him having syphilis. What I'm wondering is how he's likely to have caught it, in people's opinions. He was 50 when he died, had been married since 1903, had three children who all reached adulthood  (with no children dying or still births) and his wife didn't die for another 18 years. Would he have got it from playing around, or maybe from his wife?

[iolaus]

It's one of those diseases which can lie dormant for years, so he may have caught it in his pre-marriage days