caa a22 4500 386334579 CHVBK 20180307111728.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e198909 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0790966700015494 doi S0790966700015494 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0790966700015494 Further support from an Irish psychiatric hospital for lack of value of routine serological tests for syphilis [Elektronische Daten] [Therese O'Neill, Brian McCaffrey] Since the establishment of St. Brendan's Hospital in 1815 many changes have been seen in the pattern of psychiatric illness but none as dramatic as that of neurosyphilis. When Professor John Dunne first worked there in 1922, 20% of the patients suffered from general paralysis of the insane (G.P.I.) for which there was no cure. Around this time Wagner Von Jauregg - a Viennese physician, observed that patients who had suffered malaria during war did not suffer from G.P.I. He introduced malarial therapy successfully for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1927. Professor Dunne introduced this therapy into St. Brendan's after visiting Wagner Von Jauregg in Vienna. Unfortunately the mosquitos used would not bite! He resorted to injecting malarial infected blood. Only benign tertian malaria was effective and it is believed that the high temperatures induced - 40-41°C killed the spirochaete. This was followed by quinine treatment for malaria. The treatment was very successful but superceded in latter years by penicillin. The incidence of syphilis fell dramatically from 1942-1977, although recently it has been reported that it is rising in females and heterosexual males. One hundred consecutive samples routinely tested for syphilis (using the Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) and Treponema Pallidum Haemagglutination (TPHA) test), between January and April 1988 were examined. Ninety-eight were negative for VDRL and TPHA. Two patients, both male, revealed evidence of previous infection i.e. VDRL neg, TPHA positive with Fluorescent Treponema Antibody tests (FTABS) reactive and FTA IGM negative in both cases. Neither of the two patients had any signs or symptoms suggestive of neurosyphilis. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989 O'Neill Therese Eastern Health Board, St. Brendan's Hospital, Rathdown Rd, Dublin 7 aut McCaffrey Brian Eastern Health Board aut Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine Cambridge University Press 6/2(1989-09), 142-143 0790-9667 6:2<142 1989 6 IPM https://doi.org/10.1017/S0790966700015494 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 brief-communication jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0790966700015494 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- O'Neill Therese Eastern Health Board, St. Brendan's Hospital, Rathdown Rd, Dublin 7 aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- McCaffrey Brian Eastern Health Board aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine Cambridge University Press 6/2(1989-09), 142-143 0790-9667 6:2<142 1989 6 IPM CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge