The composer Gaetano Donizetti, who died in a state of mental derangement due to neurosyphilis, created some of opera's greatest scenes of psychosis. His letters reveal the clinical progression of his neurobiological illness, which was confirmed by autopsy. One can hypothesize that the composer's brain disease, which led to his psychosis and death, may have had an influence on his ability to cr...

Introduction Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection. The infectious organism is a spirochete bacterium called Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. This organism also may transmit vertically inutero from mother to fetus resulting in congenital syphilis. The following is a case report of tertiary syphilis in the form of tabes dorsalis. This case is of interest due to the rarity of late n...

The incidence of neurosyphilis is currently rising due to an up-spike in sexual transmission of the causative pathogen Treponema pallidum. Neurosyphilis is difficult to diagnose due to its broad array of nonspecific clinical manifestations and lack of defining characteristics on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We report a case of neurosyphilis presenting with characteristic MRI findings of di...

To identify factors that affect normalization of laboratory measures after treatment for neurosyphilis, 59 subjects with neurosyphilis underwent repeated lumbar punctures and venipunctures after completion of therapy. The median duration of follow-up was 6.9 months. Stepwise Cox regression models were used to determine the influence of clinical and laboratory features on normalization of cerebr...

In a previous paper, Dewhurst (in press) surveyed the incidence, course, and natural history of the neurosyphilitic psychoses by analysing the clinical histories of 91 patients whose illnesses necessitated their admission to mental hospitals between 1950 and 1965. Selection bias was avoided as only patients requiring treatment in mental hospitals were included. In spite of the advanced stage of...

Neurosyphilis refers to infection of the central nervous system by Treponema pallidum, which may occur at any stage. Neurosyphilis has been categorized in many ways including early and late, asymptomatic versus symptomatic and infectious versus non-infectious. Late neurosyphilis primarily affects the central nervous system parenchyma, and occurs beyond early latent syphilis, years to decades af...

INTRODUCTION In the last years, the incidence of syphilis has incremented in Spain and coinfection with HIV occurs in a high percentage. In HIV-infected patients with syphilis, neurological complications, treatment failure and relapse appear to be slightly raised. Therefore, careful follow-up must be carried out because of the risk of developing neurosyphilis. According to the guidelines, lumba...

Reports published in the past twenty years include many purporting to show, without much reason, that classic presentations of neurosyphilis are the exception rather than the rule. We join the few who take another view, and discuss here the reasons underlying the conflict of opinions.