Health & History, 2017. 19/1 1 Syphilis, General Paralysis of the Insane, and Queensland Asylums Mary Stewart, Joseph Debattista, Lisa Fitzgerald, and Owain Williams Neurosyphilis emerged as a clinical entity at the beginning of the nineteenth century with the condition, ‘General Paralysis of the Insane’ (GPI). Noted for its sudden appearance in mostly men in mid-life, patients invariably died in hospital within one to ive years from the irst onset of symptoms. Our study sought to examine the impact of GPI and other manifestations of neurosyphilis on asylum admissions in Queensland in the pre-antibiotic era, analysing the patient records of the Goodna Hospital for the Insane in the period 1880 to 1920. Those diagnosed with GPI on admission were more likely to be married and employed in professional, administrative, technical/trade occupations. The average age of death was just over forty-three years. Conversely, those admitted for other psychiatric presentations where syphilis was presumed to be causal, tended to be predominantly unmarried, and more likely to be in labouring occupations. Average age of death was ifty-two years. Keywords: Introduction Syphilis is a complex sexually transmitted infection (STI) characterised by four general stages of pathology over a period of many years. It is transmitted by close sexual or physical contact with moist mucosal or cutaneous lesions of the primary or secondary stage. 1 Phillipe Ricord, an early nineteenth century venereologist, demonstrated the speciicity of the infection in 1837, and was the irst to clearly differentiate primary, secondary, and tertiary syphilis, and to describe the characteristic skin lesions of each stage. 2 Primary