Death in an Asylum

[kernowboy]

My great great aunt died in an asylum in Plymouth in 1935. Cause of death was 'General Paralysis of the Insane' ( 4 years and 5 months ).

Does anyone have any idea of what this means?

[Jan1954]

If you throw the phrase into a search engine, many links come up - including this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_paresis) from Wikipedia. It seems that it was caused by a syphilis infection which, these days, can be treated with penicillin.

[michaelpipe]

Jan,
You beat me to it!

Same Wiki ref


Michael

[caliope]

I tried looking this up on Dr. Smith's website of archaic medical terms which I had last used quite a while ago. I can't find it now. Does anyone know what happened to it or am I just looking in the wrong place?

[benny1982]

Hi Kernowboy

Have you tried looking for any death or admission records for the relevant Plymouth asylum? This can hold a few clues no doubt.

Ben

[kernowboy]

The asylum was Blackadon which eventually became Moorhaven and is now closed. I contacted the archivist at the Plymouth & Devon Area Record Office and they have no file for my relative. It seems they only kept 10% of the patient files so no luck there.
I'm also trying to find out where she was buried