Medical question: myocardial degeneration and paralysis

[Viktoria]

There will be pictures available if you Google “Syphilis “, the same infection can cause other diseases take the tropical disease Yaws as example.
Trepanium palladium or similar - I will look it up.
We had to attend VD clinics as part of our training ( not as needing treatment I hasten to add!) but babies came into our care and we needed to know what to look for .
Their tiny hands and feet were covered in a deep rash.
I never experienced one coming to where I worked ,but those students who did said how pitiable the little tiny babies were, convulsing and with sore mouths and the unmistakeable cry .
It brought home the old saying “The sins of the fathers”——-!
Winston Churchill’s father was in the Government,Home Secretary I think whilst suffering from Syphilis ,it goes into a sort of remission giving a false sense of security , but is there lurking ,a very complex disease.
Unknown in Europe I believe until The Conquistadors came back ,!
Viktoria.

[queencorgi1]

Yes indeed, a terrible disease.

[Maiden Stone]

It may or not be relevant that George's youngest son was diagnosed with syphilis in the 1920s!
 The doctor's opinion was that he had contracted it during military service.

Defence of the Realm Acts 1914-18 included regulations about venereal diseases.
e.g Regulation 13A brothels and prostitutes particularly relating to HM forces; Regulation 40D
https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/56787-the-defence-of-the-realm-act-1914-18/
Parliamentary debated Regulation 40A Defence of the Realm Regulations (Venereal Disease) in June 1918.

[Ashtone]

For what it's worth, the classical composer Delius had syphilis and became paralysed in his later years.

[Viktoria]

Yes he did, it left him paralysed and blind ,a more neurological form seemingly .
Such lovely haunting music.
Viktoria

[Rena]

It may or not be relevant that George's youngest son was diagnosed with syphilis in the 1920s!
 The doctor's opinion was that he had contracted it during military service.

Defence of the Realm Acts 1914-18 included regulations about venereal diseases.
e.g Regulation 13A brothels and prostitutes particularly relating to HM forces; Regulation 40D
https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/56787-the-defence-of-the-realm-act-1914-18/
Parliamentary debated Regulation 40A Defence of the Realm Regulations (Venereal Disease) in June 1918.

You missed out the part where officers had access to free gossamer  "protection" and "other ranks" could avail themselves of free "wellington boots".

Officers only caught V.D. from toilet seats and "other ranks" were reprimanded for "self harming themselves".

[queencorgi1]

 

[Annie65115]

Syphilis can be acquired or congenital.

Acquired syphilis is via the time honoured manner  . The infection then goes through 3 phases, of which the second phase is the most infectious and the time when a sexual partner is most likely to catch it. A person may not even know that they have caught it initially as the first phase is characterised by a painless ulcer and that ulcer might be somewhere out of sight. The second phase can take usually 2- 10 months to appear. The third phase can take up to 20 years to become evident (though often would be quicker than that - but years, not months). During the third phase, the long term problems become evident. The commonest long term problems were neurological, including a type of dementia, or heart problems, but syphilis is “the great imitator” and can affect any part of the body. But the patient is no longer infectious at this point.

If a woman is suffering from early (1st or 2nd stage) syphilis whilst pregnant, the infection can be passed across the placenta to the baby - so the baby catches syphilis before birth, not during delivery. Affected babies are basically born with secondary syphilis. However, it’s not a given that the baby will be affected if the mum is infected, and I’ve seen evidence of the truth of this statement in real life.

Treatment nowadays is easy - just antibiotics - and pregnant women in the UK are routinely screened for syphilis with blood tests. Those blood tests will also occasionally pick up other non-syphilitic diseases, rare in the UK but common in some parts of the world (yaws and pinta).

DOI: i used to work in the field of sexual medicine.

[BenRalph]

My great great granddad died of paralytica in 1927. He was in his late 40s when he died and had  been married 23 years. He had had 3 children and his wife lived until 1945.

Would he have caught syphilis after his marriage and not from his wife as she lived so long after him? He died in High Royds Asylum and his records show him as having dementia like symptoms and being very unclean.