Syphilis is treatable with antibiotics, and then “cured” but it can go a long time in someone not recognizing or it not being evident as an infection, and the damage it has already done, cannot be reversed. One of many ways it can can be expressed is as damage to heart muscles and vessels, mimicking other cardiac infections that cause cardiomyopathy (muscle death) and leads to heart failure (compounding existing coronary lesions and low oxygen tissue damage from genetics and lifestyle of diet, booze etc, needing bypass or a stent) It goes dormant for long periods of time and pops up again, in similar fashion to virus (virions) such as those that remain on the spinal cord (after chicken pox) and show up infecting entire dermatomes of nerves right out to the nerve endings (and the nerves become numb after it has run its course, and there is constant potential for post-herpetic pain- shingles being a herpes like virus). You are right— it is nasty— but the key is the damage already caused when “hidden” or undiagnosed. Agree- seems like his victims would have caught it— but then, he made them and then dumped them. Not an expert in this— but the neurosyphilis is what they were specific about, and am reading up on it. It could very well be cancer, brought on by another STD maybe papillomavirus—which again he would pass on except his “oral” fixation. Like one of the old roman emperors, debauched and rotting away.
I’ve been doing a crash course on it tonight. Whew.
It does seem that he could have been one to have fairly minimal symptoms after the initial infection and disregarded them. There was lot of drugs and sex in his AR years.
Apparently it is quite possible that during the latent stage he was not contagious. The time table would seem to indicate that his latent stage was longer than average. It also seems possible that he could have infected one or more women and they never realized it.
This has been an educational thread. Albeit rather scary.
If this is indeed his problem, I cannot find it in my heart to have ANY compassion for the man. IMO he is a monster that should have been excised from our society a long time ago.