+Late Syphilis of the Nervous System--General Paralysis.+--General
paralysis, or paresis, is a progressive mental degeneration, with
relapses and periods of improvement which reduce the patient by
successive stages to a jibbering idiocy ending invariably in death. Such
patients may, in the course of their decline, have delusions which lead
them to acts of violence. The only place for a paretic is in an asylum,
since the changes in judgment, will-power, and moral control which occur
early in the disease are such that, before the patient gets
unmanageable, he may have pretty effectually wrecked his business and
the happiness of his family and associates. When the condition is
recognized, the family must at least be forewarned, so that they can
take action when it seems necessary. Both locomotor ataxia and paresis
may develop in the same person, producing a combined form known as
taboparesis.

The importance of locomotor ataxia and paresis in persons who carry
heavy responsibilities is very great. In railroad men, for example, the
harm that can be done in the early stages of paresis is as great as or
even greater than the harm that an epileptic can do. A surgeon with
beginning taboparesis may commit the gravest errors of judgment before
his condition is discovered. Men of high ability, on whom great
responsibilities are placed, may bring down with them, in their
collapse, great industrial and financial structures dependent on the
integrity of their judgment. The extent of such damage to the welfare of
society by syphilis is unknown, though here and there some investigation
scratches the surface of it. It will remain for the future to show us
more clearly the cost of syphilis in this direction.

+Syphilis and Mental Disease.+--Williams,[7] before the American Public