This paper aims to study the historical evolution and describe the impact of modern antibiotic therapy on psychiatric hospital admissions. The data was collected in the hospital data bank with records of patients admissions from 1931 to 1991. Patients were classified by name, sex, age, marital status, social class, nationality, place of birth, occupation, number of admissions by neurosyphilis and other diagnosis as also date of admission and state of health at time of leaving hospital, and this information was used in the statistical analysis. The classification system of diagnosis is that used by WHO ICD - 9. The results show decreasing rates of admissions by neurosyphilis after the introduction of penicillin in 1948 (19%) to the last admission in the historical cohort in 1968. The antibiotics (penicillin) change the natural evolution of the disease and its pattern of morbidity and mortality. The therapeutical impact of antibiotics in the incidence and prevalence of hospitalization rates of neurosyphilis is never observed in any other psychiatric disease.
Case report; neurosyphilis; psychiatry; psychiatric hospital
