SYPHILIS AS A FACTOR IN THE ETIOLOGY OF MENTAL DEFICIENCY

Abstract

There are few problems in medicine concerning which more widely divergent views are expressed than those in regard to the role of syphilis in the etiology of mental deficiency. Thus, Key and Pijper, 1 in 1922, reported an incidence of 55.2 per cent. positive Wassermann reactions in 217 cases of amentia, at the same time, however, stressing the opinion that syphilis alone cannot be responsible for the amentia in all of these cases. Atwood 2 is quoted as stating that 14 per cent. of the mental defectives at the New York City Children's Hospital are syphilitic on the basis of Wassermann tests. We have been unable to trace the source of Atwood's information, but we note that he must have changed his opinion; for, in a more recent contribution,3 he asserts that syphilis is an uncommon cause of mental deficiency. E. Livingston Hunt 4 states that: Mental defectiveness and deficiency