Psychological medicine

Friday, August 1st. Dr. F. W. Mott (London) opened a discussion on Syphilis as a Cause of Insanity... A number of statistical data were cited by Dr. Mott from different observers and it was shown that the most recent observations concurred in assigning the first place among the etiological factors to syphilis. Juvenile general paralysis was almost invariably found to be a result of congenital syphilis and in 20 per cent. of the cases observed it was found that the fathers of the patients had had general paralysis. Dr. Mott concluded by adopting, for the purposes of raising a discussion, the thesis, “No syphilis, no general paralysis”.