Tertiary Syphilis. – Unless the further progress of the disease be checked by appropriate treatment, a fresh series of lesions may occur after an interval which varies from one to several years. There is no sharp line of distinction between secondary symptoms on the one hand, and tertiary symptoms on the other, but the most characteristic feature of the tertiary lesions is the formation of local tumours called gummata which occur most often in the periosteum, liver, testicle, and brain.
Sooner or later, if the progress of the disease be still unchecked, the so-called syphilitic cachexia sets in and the patient may finally die either from exhaustion, or from some intercurrent affection.
Congenital Syphilis. – This is syphilis derived from intra- uterine infection of the embryo with the syphilitic virus. It is a very much more serious form of the disease than the acquired. Symptoms usually first appear at the end of three to six weeks after birth in the form of cutaneous eruptions resembling those of the secondary period of acquired Syphilis, and most of frequent occurrence on the buttocks, abdomen, palms and soles. Snuffles also constitutes a common initial symptom. The child’s appearance is cachectic, the features pinched, the skin dry and shrivelled, and it gradually sinks. On the other hand, if begun sufficiently early, appropriate treatment will speedily restore the child in most cases to a condition of comparative health.
Those coming in contact with Syphilitic patients cannot be too scrupulous in avoiding infection, nor can the patient exercise too much care in preventing the conveyance of the disease to others.
EPITOME OF TREATMENT. –
I. Primary Syphilis. – Mercurius-S., Ac.-Nit., Mercurius-Cor., Thuja, Arsenicum, Iodium, Sulphur
2. Secondary Syphilis. – Ac.-Nit., K.-Hydroid., Mercurius, K.-Chlorum, ARs., Aurum
3. Tertiary Syphilis. – K.- Hydroid, Aurum, Phosphorus, Ac.-Phosphorus, Arsenicum, K.-Bich.
Strict cleanliness is indispensable. Above all it must be remembered that Syphilis is a debilitating disease, and the importance of all treatment which tends to the improvement of the general health cannot be over-rated.
Prompt professional homoeopathic treatment at the outset is generally successful in eradicating the disease; and in the later stages professional skill is no less important. The patient must re sign himself to remaining under medical supervision for at least a year after all symptoms have disappeared.
Chronic Syphilis.- Whether he has been treated or not the patient is always liable to develop nerve symptoms. These are the most serious of all the complications of syphilis and the commonest are general paralysis and locomotor ataxia. They generally show themselves about ten years after infection.
In general paralysis there is progressive dementia usually with some form of exaltation. The speech is hesitating, slurred and tremulous. The face muscles and tongue show paresis with tremors. The writing is also affected. Later the muscular power becomes gradually weakened until there is more or less general paralysis. Finally the mind gives out and the patient becomes insane.
TREATMENT. – Ant.-C., Arsenicum, Cann.-Ind., Hyoscyamus, Nux vomica, Opium, Phosphorus, PLumb., Sul., Stramonium, Ver-A.
Locomotor Ataxy. – This occurs mostly in men and gives rise to certain definite symptoms which may be enumerated as follows Contracted pupils and they do not react to light (Argyll Robertson pupil). Squints and double vision may be found. Lightning pains may occur in any part of the body and girdle pains in the chest or stomach. There may be a sensation of walking on wool or pins and needles in various parts. Attacks of gastric pain and vomiting or of severe pain and straining at stool or of bladder pain with frequent or difficult micturition are common. The knee-jerks and other reflexes are lost. There is difficulty in walking on account of muscular inco-ordination.
General paralysis and locomotor ataxia may be present together.
TREATMENT. – Zinc, Phosphorus, Plumb., Argentum Nit., Oxal-Ac, Chrom., Sulphur
61. – Soft Chancre (Chancroid, Ulcus Molle).
Soft Chancre is a highly contagious venereal disease characterized by the occurrence of one, or more frequently several shallow ulcers about the genitals. The disease is due to inoculation with a specific micro-organism (Ducreys bacillus) and has no connection with syphilis with which until comparatively recently, it was confounded. It is to be noted, however, that the virus of syphilis and that of Soft Chancre may be, and indeed, often are, inoculated at the same time in the same place. In such cases the soft sore develops first, and a month later the symptoms of Syphilis supervene.
The incubation period of the disease is short so that within a few hours after infection a red spot may be seen at the site of inoculation, usually foreskin or glans penis, and in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, a pustule may have developed which bursts and leaves a shallow ulcer. This ulcer, in contradistinction to that of hard chancre, is painful, has invariably a soft base, and a ragged uneven floor covered at first with a greyish-white slough. The secretion is intensely infective. As a rule, the ulcer remains small, about the size of a three penny-piece, and the duration of an uncomplicated soft sore is about three weeks.
Two severe complications deserve mention (I) acute inflammation of the lymphatic glands of the groin, which is common; (2) Phagedaena and gangrene which, happily, is rare, for it is always serious and difficult to treat.
TREATMENT. – Keep as clean and free from irritation as possible. Dust with iodoform or other mild antiseptic powder.
At the first sign of inflammation of the glands, in the groin, rest in bed must be enforced, and if pus forms it must be evacuated by incision.
MEDICINES. – Mercurius-Sol., Ac.-Nit., Mercurius-Cor., Thuja, Arsenicum
62. – Tuberculosis.
DEFINITION. – Tuberculosis is the result of infection of the body by the tubercle bacillus. Tuberculous disease can only be produced by living tubercle bacilli, and the only certain proof of the existence of the disease is the demonstration of the micro-organism in material derived from the patient.
The disease gets its name from the characteristic naked eye appearance of the lesions which are nodular bodies called tubercles.
More than ten per cent. of all deaths in this country and about twenty-five per cent, of the deaths in children’s hospital in London are due to tuberculous disease in one or other of its protean forms.
The tubercle bacillus has great resisting power, and is capable of living for several months in dried sputum, and may be cultivated, or be made to cause disease in susceptible animals when obtained from the dust of ordinary living rooms. The gastric juice does not destroy it, nor does the process of decomposition going on in dead tissues over a period of many weeks. A most important point, however, is that direct sunlight has a rapid lethal effect upon the micro-organism, so also has a solution of carbolic acid of strength one in twenty, especially after preliminary treatment of sputum with strong caustic soda. The bacilli occur in all tuberculous lesions and are cast off in vast numbers in the sputum of those who suffer from tuberculosis of the lung. It may, however, be regarded as proved that the ordinary expired air of patients who have tuberculous lung disease does not contain tubercule bacilli, but the matter is very different when they cough. In the act of coughing, and to some extent also in speaking, singing and sneezing, there is projected with considerable force into the air a spray of foam containing a great number of living bacilli, so that the cough of a patient suffering from tuberculous lung disease, especially in a late stage, is very dangerous thing indeed.
It is now definitely established that difference exist between the bacillus causing tuberculosis in human beings and in cattle respectively. The human type of bacillus is less virulent to cattle than is the bovine type, and though this cannot be made the subject of experiment, the bovine type is probably less virulent to man than is the human type. So far as can be judged, by the observations already undertaken, about ten per cent of all cases of tuberculosis in man are due to infection by the bovine type of bacillus. In children, the bovine type is found relatively much more often; in adults it is quite uncommon. It is probable that something like one-fifth of all cases of tuberculosis in children is due to infection by the bovine type of bacillus, the cases being chiefly those of abdominal tuberculosis, of tuberculous disease of the glands of the neck, and of lupus.
The infection is a distributed one rather than a person-to- person contagion; that is to say, the bacilli mostly derived from human expectoration, become deposited and mingled with dust in all kinds of dirty places, which are badly ventilated and to which sunlight does not obtain direct access, and so are inhaled with the air and ingested with contaminated foods and drinks.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."