RECENT METHODS IN THE TREATMENT OF GENERAL PARALYSIS: A Brief Survey
Abstract
A Brief Survey Henry A. Bunker Jr. M. D. 1 1 New York State Psychiatric Institute, Ward's Island, New York 1. Of 542 tryparsamide-treated cases of general paralysis collected from the literaure, full remission of mental symptoms and restoration of the patient to approximately his former status occurred in about 35 per cent. 2. Speaking generally, some 30 injections of tryparsamide usually produce the maximum of clinical improvement of which the drug is capable in the given case, but upwards of 100 injections are often necessary to modify materially the strength of the Wassermann reaction in the spinal fluid. 3. Of 2460 malaria-treated cases of general paralysis collected from the literature, a full remission occurred in about 27 per cent, with the production of an incomplete remission in an additional 26 per cent. 4. Malaria, unaided by supplementary specific treatment, is capable of a very definite influence upon the spinal fluid pathology; but this influence, especially as regards the Wassermann reaction, is very gradual in its manifestation. 5. Women seem to respond less successfully to malaria treatment, on the whole, than do men; but it is possible that this difference between men and women patients is more apparent than real. 6. The seeming arrest of the disease process effected by malaria may be of protracted duration. Such a status characterized three out of eight patients at the end of six and one-half to seven and one-half years, 13 out of 25 patients at the end of nearly five years, and 21 out of 29 patients at the end of four to five years.