B for Syphilis

When a syphilitic has harbored spirochetes for 15 or 20 years, they finally, migrate to his brain or spinal cord. He finds that his knees buckle under him, his hands jump, he cannot turn or close his eyes without falling. Faced with madness or paralysis, he is generally willing to undergo any heroic measure to set his world straight again. One of the best treatments for neurosyphilis (including tabes dorsalis, general paresis) is injections of tryparsamide, a penetrating arsenic compound. Tryparsamide has one tremendous drawback: it sometimes injures, sometimes destroys, the optic nerve, produces flickering vision, a narrow range of sight, even blindness. Yet doctors dare not do without the drug, because in cases of advanced syphilis it is one of the best safeguards against insanity and death.

Last week in Chicago, Dr. William Mabley Muncy of Providence, R. I. suggested to his colleagues of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology a way of taking the blinding curse off tryparsamide. He had done it with a good old standby: vitamin B.

Well knowing that vitamin B is essential for healthy nerves, Dr. Muncy bolstered up 50 neurosyphilitics with various forms of vitamin B before they got their routine tryparsamide injections. Some were given doses of cod-liver oil, as well as two yeast tablets a day; others were also given intravenous injections of the synthetic vitamin. Only one of the 50 suffered any disturbance of vision. When the vitamin was given to a number of tryparsamide "shock victims" whose eyes were already failing, they reported a quick and remarkable improvement.

"If this method of [tryparsamide] treatment can be made safe [by preparation with vitamin B]," said Dr. Muncy last week, "it may well be applied to all obstinate and long-standing cases of simple blood syphilis, thereby preventing them from passing over into a neurosyphilitic state. This would place neurosyphilis in the category of preventable diseases."

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