The V.D. epidemic The V.D. problem
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The following program was produced by a group w o the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company
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and is distributed to educational stations by the National Education or radio network.
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The program you're about to hear may be unpleasant to some it may be
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embarrassing to all. It will be important. It's not a
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program designed for adults only. Even though words will be used that are
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not often heard on Family Radio. It's not a program designed to be
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sensational. Even though some of the activities we all like to keep
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secret will be discussed quite openly. This will be done because we'll be
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dealing in an area where silence can kill where ignorance can
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blind and false modesty can literally lead to insanity.
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Venereal disease is important to you and your family. It has not
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been wiped out. On the contrary it's a growing problem especially with
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teenagers.
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My name is William F. Schwartz I am the educational consultant for the venereal disease
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branch of the United States Public Health Service. The people of the United States have
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never felt the venereal diseases anything which concerns them very much.
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They have unfortunately the attitude that syphilis is something
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which Nice people don't get and shouldn't do anything about and shouldn't
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even talk about. A lot of people believe that if you have an Ariel disease you
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somehow deserve it. And this is in spite of the fact that literally thousands of
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cases are contracted in ways that are entirely
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morally legally and socially acceptable. This attitude has been
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very strongly excoriated and condemned by Father Francis L.
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fireless who is head of the department of theology at Loyola
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University says this is the most heartless and bigoted
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interpretation of biblical doctrine that anyone could possibly imagine.
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And he points out that not only are innocent wives and husbands
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and babies and so forth infected with this disease but. He
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classes among the innocent day teenagers who are influenced by the
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sex culture of our modern times and who are simply doing what
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comes naturally and not knowing any better.
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We have to start educating kids in school at an early age.
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This is another of the few dedicated men who are fighting VD.
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Dr. Sidney R. Lansky Fessor medicine dermatology Emory
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University School of Medicine there are a great many people who feel that
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promiscuity is alright but getting a venereal disease is
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not. They dissociate the two. Actually it's the act
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that produces the disease it's just that some people are less fortunate than others in
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acquiring this. One would think that in this present
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society the moral attitude would have very little influence if we can
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believe the things we read about and hear about. But.
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Many many people consider that getting a venereal disease as
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a bad thing and not the act by which they acquired it. For example I had a
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patient who was not married and who was pregnant but also had syphilis. I asked what
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her father would think about this. She said Well don't tell him about my surface.
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He won't mind my being pregnant in an effort to break down the wall of silence that is
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helping venereal disease flourish and to assist in our government's program of
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eradicating syphilis and perhaps even gonorrhea Group W
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Westinghouse Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the Columbia University School of
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Public Health and administrative medicine and with the American Social Health Association
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is bringing you a series of reports on the venereal disease.
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Your reporter Walter McGraw. In Chicago Tom Thibodeau is
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director of venereal disease information and education for the Board of Health.
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A couple of years ago I was going on I was talking to a teen age group and I was discussing syphilis
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and gonorrhea and I thought I'd been very exact in using layman terms
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and upon closing the program we had a little time left over for a question answered and a
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boy stands up and he said Why it's fine. I know all about these two diseases.
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But what about the clap. And this of course was a popular site term for gonorrhea. I
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thought I was communicating assuming that my audience knew about seven
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gonorrhea which is not the case. They had never heard of syphilis and gonorrhea Have they heard about the clap.
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It will be the purpose of these reports to communicate. So let it be clear that
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what we're talking about are variously called the whites. So if the pox
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and bad blood and let it also be clear that these reports are
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addressed not to those other people but to us
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who gets venereal disease again Dr. Alinsky as we analyze a
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statistics the increase seems to be in the very young and
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in the middle class.
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It's no longer a disease of the lower socio economic groups. It's everywhere
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and also where we have reason to believe that there's been a lot of upper crust involved
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in this both from the point of view of infection and perhaps
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homosexuality. People who engage in unusual sexual
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habits are unusual sexual games are probably more apt to
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get it because by the very nature of the way they behave they are less apt
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to be aware of their partner being infected. For example in
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the homosexual you don't have as many signs and symptoms that are on the
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surface perhaps. Whereas if it were in the natural of the
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usual custom you would know that lesions were there in many instances
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which would be unrecognizable they may be hidden.
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The story of VD is filled with many ironies. One of these is that for many
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years the medical profession refused to believe that syphilis and gonorrhea were not just
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one disease. However they are different diseases and you can contract
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one or the other or both.
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What are they like. Well here is Dr. James Lucas assistant to the Chief
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for the venereal disease branch of the communicable disease center in Atlanta.
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Gonorrhea is usually a localized disease of the
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genital track. It affects both males and females. It's caused by a
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small germ. We call the NIE Syria gonorrhea II and once it
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enters the body it causes various sorts of inflammation which leads
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to usually a period on discharge. How would one know one and this in
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males. Usually there is a profuse period lint or pus a
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discharge. He may have symptoms like urgency and he may have
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some pain on urination. Women on the other hand the disease is
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often asymptomatic that is they may have no symptoms whatsoever. On
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occasion however women may have discomfort in the pelvic area or
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they may have a discharge which may be quite profuse in some cases. If
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nothing is done about these things what happens then. In males the disease
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frequently can lead to sterility and painful
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complications. It may enter the bloodstream and patients may
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develop arthritis which is quite a painful and crippling disease or an even
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rarer instances why it may invade the heart itself or some other vital
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organs. Can it be fatal. It can be but it is unusual for
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Dawna Riya unlike syphilis over how many years can this have an effect
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with Gone orea the disease is usually acute and the symptoms of
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particularly in males are such that the patient will seek medical treatment.
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Of course if a person does have complications that lead Francis to sterility why
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this is of course a permanent thing. You say there's quite a bit of pain as far as a man is
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concerned. Will this pain just go away if nothing is done after an indeterminate length of
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time and then this may be weeks or many months. Other patients symptoms will
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usually gradually become less providing he doesn't develop one or more of the
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complications of the disease or hello. Would a person be
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infectious to others will go on a real patient is probably infectious for as
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long as he has any sort of. Symptoms and perhaps even beyond
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this point so an untreated gonorrhea the patient may be infectious for many many months.
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Let's switch over to simplest know how does this differ from going to real.
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Syphilis is a more systemic disease. Once the trepanning
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enters the body usually through the skin the organisms will
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multiply and spread through the bloodstream and enter all organs of the
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body. Does it have to be a wound or cut of some good.
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No it's probable that the organism which is a spiral keyed a
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long corkscrew shaped organism can penetrate normal skin and we
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know that it also enters through the mucus membranes which are a little thinner than the skin
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itself can also be contracted through the mouth good.
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This is correct only here are the terms primary secondary
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latent late. How would you break down in these terms. Syphilis is
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a continuum.
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It is a spectrum of disease. Early in the disease
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shortly after the organism is entered the body in a matter of weeks
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the patient will develop a small sore at the site where the organism entered
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the body and this is called a shank or even without treatment. The Shanker will
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spontaneously disappear.
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How would one recognize the Shakers against a cold sore.
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This may be quite difficult and the only way of positively
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identifying as Shanker is to examine some of the C creation from
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it under a microscope. This is called a darkfield examination
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and one can see this by Keats.
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All right let's go on with this primary.
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We have the shaker and though it disappears after a variable period of time perhaps a
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month or perhaps six weeks the shanker will disappear by itself only
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to be followed again after a brief interval by more generalized
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symptoms and these are usually in the nature of skin rashes which may appear on any
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part of the body. If the scalp was affected the hair maybe lost the eyebrows
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maybe lost the lesions can appear on any of the body surfaces the palms and
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the soles of the feet are on the trunk or chest.
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Now is there any way of telling whether this rash is an
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ordinary kind of rash or a simplistic rush.
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Not absolutely by just clinically looking at the patient. One usually
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has to resort to blood tests for syphilis.
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But if nothing is done about the rush that too goes away.
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Right. That is correct. After a few weeks the race will disappear just like the
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shanker disappeared. And then we enter the stage of the disease that we call latency.
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Here there are no signs or symptoms of the disease the patient has no right she has
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no sores on his body. He has no fever. He feels fine. He's
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totally unaware that he is harboring the organism. Is he infectious at this point.
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No. In general patients are not infectious unless they have active
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skin lesions which will allow transmission to another person. So how long is a
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patient infectious really from three to six months. Now there is one exception
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in Elaine say as far as transmission of the disease goes in this is in females who
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become pregnant and the disease in latency can be transmitted by the
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mother to the unborn child. Is that a latent form of the disease that's
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transferred. No. Often when the child is born he will display florid
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manifestations of disease. If the child is born alive and
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not infrequently the child will be lost due to the infection. What else can happen to the
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job. There may be permanent changes in the teeth on the bones
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and other organs of the child he may develop blindness and he may develop deafness or
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he may develop syphilitic insanity just as adults might be going on from
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late and too late. What happens after the latent period
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which is highly variable and may actually last from a few years to
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many many years perhaps 20 or even 30 in some cases. The
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organisms seem to find a renewed vitality and
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actual organ destruction takes place and the two most serious
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types of late disease involve the heart which may lead to syphilitic heart disease
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and heart failure eventual death of the patient and the late disease
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it is associated with the nervous system which might lead to insanity
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blindness or paralysis.
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And of course death and this can kill music as much as 30 years later. That's
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right. They can be detected by the use of blood tests and the patient can
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