After World War II the use of penicillin to treat syphilis made general paresis a rarity: even patients manifesting early symptoms of actual general paresis were capable of full recovery with a course of penicillin. The disorder is now virtually unknown outside developing countries, and even there the epidemiology is substantially reduced. Some notable cases of general paresis: 

General Ranald S. Mackenzie was retired from the US Army in 1884 for "general paresis of the insane" 5 years before his death in 1889. Theo Van Gogh, brother of painter Vincent van Gogh, died six months after Vincent in 1891 from "dementia parylitica" or what is now called syphilitic paresis.The Chicago gangster Al Capone died of syphilitic paresis, having contracted syphilis in a brothel in 1919, and not having been properly treated for it in time to prevent his later onset of syphilitic paresis. See also
Karolina Olsson
Neurosyphilis
Tabes dorsalis
Tuskegee experiment

References


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Especially in Latin America, a granulomatous mass (known as an amoeboma) may form in the wall of the ascending colon or rectum due to long-lasting immunological cellular response, and is sometimes confused with cancer.The ingestion of one viable cyst may cause an infection.Steroid therapy can occasionally provoke severe amoebic colitis in people with any E. histolytica infection. This bears high mortality: on average more than 50% with severe colitis die. Cause
Amoebiasis is an infection caused by the amoeba Entamoeba histolytica. Transmission
Amoebiasis is usually transmitted by the fecal-oral route, but it can also be transmitted indirectly through contact with dirty hands or objects as well as by anal-oral contact. Infection is spread through ingestion of the cyst form of the parasite, a semi-dormant and hardy structure found in feces. Any non-encysted amoebae, or trophozoites, die quickly after leaving the body but may also be present in stool: these are rarely the source of new infections. Since amoebiasis is transmitted through contaminated food and water, it is often endemic in regions of the world with limited modern sanitation systems, including México, Central America, western South America, South Asia, and western and southern Africa.Amoebic dysentery is one form of travelers diarrhea, although most travelers diarrhea is bacterial or viral in origin. Pathogenesis
Amoebiasis results from tissue destruction induced by the E. histolytica parasite. E. histolytica causes tissue damage by three main events: direct host cell killing, inflammation, and parasite invasion.