Survival rate of patients hospitalized with the diagnosis of general paresis

A N EXAMINATION of th e survival rate in cases of general paresis appears to be of interest for several reasons: 1. There are few diseases in which life expectancy has undergone so marked a change :in recent years as has general paresis. A clear picture of this is seen when recent data are compared with those of 40 years ago, before the first SUCcessful treatment methods of general paresis were discovered. 2. There are no studies published which compare the survival rate of general paretics to a sample of the general population, matched for sex and age and historical period, 3. There are very few long-term studies in which patients were followed for 25 years or more; still fewer studies are reported in which 100 per cent of the original sample could be followed. 4, Though new cases of general paresis occur less frequently than they did before the discovery of penicillin, they do occur. At the present time these new cases together with the old ones occupy 87 beds in the Veterans Administration (Yeuropsychiatric) Hospital, Bedford, Massachusetts, or 4.8 per cent of the total number of patients of that hospital, The two samples of general paretics studied in this report are made up of patients urho are or were at one time hospitalized at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Bedford, Massachusetts, This hospital was opened on June 17,