[Neurosyphilis mortality in a psychiatric hospital over a 50-year period].

Through information gathered at the statistical and medical register service it was done a descriptive study of some epidemiologic aspects of neurosyphilis at the Juliano Moreira Hospital (Bahia) in a period of 50 years (1930 - 1979). Coeficients of specific mortality were stablished . The distribution of the disease was analyzed according to sex, diagnosis in relation to the year, decades and periods before and after penicilinotherapy . Based on the results it is possible to conclude that: neurosyphilis has a cyclic character in epidemiologic level; women are more resistant or less exposed to the disease; males are more often affected; with the penicilinotherapy it was observed a progressive decrease of mortality; the last death caused by neurosyphilis at the Juliano Moreira Hospital occurred in 1971.