Dess's little problem

I was told that Dess had syphilis and that his first 3 children - going to be a little vague here - had to wash in a red substance to combat this. Wow that sounds weird, doesn't it?? Anyway, it was thought that Leona was mentally slow as a result of the syphilis, that she was most affected because she ws the firstborn, and that the red substance kept it from having a great effect on the other 2 children. I am assuming that Dess was fully treated by the time Bud, the twins, and Vera were born, with Jackie being on the cusp.

I have several problems with this.  First, the initial treatment of syphilis was in 1910 and prior to that mercury salts were used. Have not been able to find any information on this being a red substance except in its initial processing, later turning white.

Second, Dess's sister Cordelia allegedly was a madam, and if Dess got syphilis from one of his sister's prostitutes, this would have been in the late 1890s, he would have been 15 in 1896. Cordelia supposedly had a mobile prostitution unit, a hookermobile if you will, which I guess was a large vehicle, and that Dess drove it. Boy this sounds crazy to me, just relating what I was told.

 Let's say he contracted this disease in 1998, when he got married in 1902 he would have had this for 5 years and would have had it for 10 years when Leona was born and 16 years when Jackie was born. Although syphilis has many presentations and inconsistent symptoms, I can't imagine that Dess had this disease all that time without exhibiting serious symptoms. Arsphenamine, also known as salvarsan, was used for treatment of syphilis starting in 1910, replacing mercury salts, so unless the mercury salts was the red substance and Dess used this earlier, he would not have been treated until he had this disease for 12 years. Obviously I am making an assumption here and he may not have contracted this until later.