Senile dementia is the result of old age and of acquired brain disease.  It is different from simple old age or dotage.  In old age the mind is weakened, but the patient is conscious of it, such a person forgets a name or date and gropes about in his memory to find it.

The demented person is not conscious of loss of memory, but applies wrong names to persons, and serenely thinks he is right.

The senile demented person does not realize his condition, and if there is any mental power left he cherishes delusions or false beliefs.

The victim of old age is unconscious of his weakness.

[314 Mothers’ remedies]

General paresis.—­Wine, worry and women produce a great many cases of this disease.  The doctors claim a notorious criminal now committed to one asylum and about whom we have read so much, is a victim of this disease.

First stage.—­There is worry, anxiety, sleeplessness and melancholy.

Second stage.—­Stage of mania, wealth, power, and grandeur, alternating in some cases with attacks of temporary depressions.

Third stage.—­Patient passes into a condition of subacute or chronic mania, with a slow tendency to decadence of all the powers, idiotic.

Fourth stage.—­Stage of physical and mental failure and of death.  Syphilis causes most cases.  It usually develops between twenty-five and fifty years.  The outlook for such cases is very unfavorable, as the patient usually dies from one to eight or ten years after the beginning of the disease.

Treatment.—­There have been great advances made in recent years in the treatment of persons mentally unsound.  They should be placed under proper treatment at an early stage.  The causes have been given so that preventive measures may be taken.

CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES.

Rheumatic gout. (Rheumatic Arthritis.  Arthritis Deformans).—­Cause.—­It occurs most often from thirty to fifty-five, usually in women, generally at or after the change of life, and most frequently in those who have not had children.  The involvement of the joints is most common in adult males.

Exciting cause may be:  Exposure to cold and wet, improper food, unhygienic surroundings, worry, blows and acute infections.

Conditions.—­Several joints are usually involved symmetrically.  At the edge of the joints there is formation of new bone covered with cartilage, causing the enlargement of the bone and often partial loss of motion in that joint.

Symptoms.—­Several distinct types exist. 1.  General progressive types which may be acute or chronic.

Acute.—­This occurs usually in women from twenty to thirty and at the change of life.  It comes on like acute joint rheumatism, many joints being affected, permanent enlargement appearing early, redness of the joints rarely existing, the pain being very severe, some fever, feel very tired, with anemia, loss of flesh and strength.  The first and later attacks are often associated with pregnancy, confinement or nursing.