Acetarsol in the Treatment of Late Congenital Syphilis amongst Mental Defectives

Abstract

The treatment of congenital syphilis, in spite of the advances in the general treatment of syphilis in the last thirty years, still leaves much to be desired. Veeder, after treating some 500 cases of congenital syphilis in St. Louis between 1912 and 1920, came to the conclusion that the results of treatment were most unsatisfactory, and that very little was to be gained by the treatment of the syphilitic child. He advocated the treatment of the parents to prevent the birth of syphilitic children. Nabarro is of opinion that the criterion of cure should be the complete cessation of any symptoms of activity and a normal blood and cerebro-spinal fluid. He has not been able to fix any limit of time after which he can regard the patient as cured. He mentions a case of his which relapsed with interstitial keratitis after having had a negative Wasser mann reaction for eight years. Ambrose King doubts whether congenital syphilis is ever really cured; he states that “cases had been seen in which manifestations of congenital syphilis appeared only after the lapse of a number of years, and others in which active lesions occurred, but with a negative Wassermann”.