Week 7: Outcast

Russell Monroe Williams, my grand-uncle, was the first of eleven children born to my great grandparents Owen and Minnie Williams.  I've never been able to find a photograph of Russell either as a boy or a man but I remember the stories that were told about him.  In the 1910 Census Russell was a 9-year-old boy attending school but by the 1920 Census (dated 29 Jan 1920) he was an 18-year-old who wasn't in school and had no listed occupation.  In September of 1920 Russell joined the Army in Company F of the 49th Infantry and served for eleven months before being honorably discharged on 2 Aug 1921.  

It may have been during this period of service that Russell contracted syphilis.   It was most certainly an unfortunate time to contract the disease.   

Although the cause of syphilis was discovered in 1905--the culprit is a spiral-shaped bacterium called Treponema palladium--there were no effective treatments for it and by the 1930s, approximately 1 out of every 10 Americans suffered from syphilis.  In 1928 Alexander Fleming, a London scientist, discovered penicillin but it wasn't until fifteen years later in 1943 that doctors working at a U.S. Marine Hospital in New York first treated and cured four patients with syphilis by giving them penicillin.

Uncle Russell's syphilis went untreated long enough to cause Meningoencephalitis, a central nervous system infection common in the early stages of untreated syphilis.  Uncle Russell began to show neuropsychiatric signs of mental illness and violent behavior toward his family and in 1941 was admitted to the Logansport State Mental Hospital.  This hospital was his home until 1960 when he died with the official cause of death being Tuberculous Pneumonia. The death certificate listed Central Nervous System Syphilis: Meningoencephalis as a contributing factor.  For the last nineteen years of his life Uncle Russell was only able to see his family under controlled visits at the hospital.  He died alone, never having married.  The family only spoke of him in in hushed tones.

Rest in peace, Uncle Russell.  I'm sorry that a disease made you an outcast and that I never got to meet you.