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Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents. The primary stage classically presents with a single chancre though there may be multiple sores. In secondary syphilis, a diffuse rash occurs, which frequently involves the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. There may also be sores in the mouth or vagina. In latent syphilis, which can last for years, there are few or no symptoms. In tertiary syphilis, there are gummas, neurological problems, or heart symptoms. Syphilis has been known as "the great imitator" as it may cause symptoms similar to many other diseases.
John Hunter was a Scottish surgeon, one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific method in medicine. He was a teacher of, and collaborator with, Edward Jenner, pioneer of the smallpox vaccine. He paid for the stolen body of Charles Byrne, and proceeded to study and exhibit it against the deceased's explicit wishes. His wife, Anne Hunter, was a poet, some of whose poems were set to music by Joseph Haydn.
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a group of nearly 400 African American men with syphilis. The purpose of the study was to observe the effects of the disease when untreated, though by the end of the study medical advancements meant it was entirely treatable. The men were not informed of the nature of the experiment, and more than 100 died as a result.
Mercury(II) chloride (or mercury bichloride, mercury dichloride), historically also known as sulema or corrosive sublimate, is the inorganic chemical compound of mercury and chlorine with the formula HgCl2. It is white crystalline solid and is a laboratory reagent and a molecular compound that is very toxic to humans. Once used as a treatment for syphilis, it is no longer used for medicinal purposes because of mercury toxicity and the availability of superior treatments.
A panacea, named after the Greek goddess of universal remedy Panacea, is any supposed remedy that is claimed to cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely. It was in the past sought by alchemists in connection with the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone, a mythical substance that would enable the transmutation of common metals into gold. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, many "patent medicines" were claimed to be panaceas, and they became very big business. The term "panacea" is used in a negative way to describe the overuse of any one solution to solve many different problems, especially in medicine. The word has acquired connotations of snake oil and quackery.
Calomel is a mercury chloride mineral with formula Hg2Cl2 (see mercury(I) chloride). The name derives from Greek kalos (beautiful) and melas (black) because it turns black on reaction with ammonia. This was known to alchemists.
Arsanilic acid, also known as aminophenyl arsenic acid or aminophenyl arsonic acid, is an organoarsenic compound, an amino derivative of phenylarsonic acid whose amine group is in the 4-position. A crystalline powder introduced medically in the late 19th century as Atoxyl, its sodium salt was used by injection in the early 20th century as the first organic arsenical drug, but it was soon found prohibitively toxic for human use.
The Contagious Diseases Acts were originally passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1864, with alterations and additions made in 1866 and 1869. In 1862, a committee had been established to inquire into venereal disease in the armed forces. On the committee's recommendation the first Contagious Diseases Act was passed. The legislation allowed police officers to arrest women suspected of being prostitutes in certain ports and army towns. Since there was no set definition of prostitution within the Act, the question was left to the police officer’s discretion, and women could be arrested even if there was no actual evidence of prostitition. The women were then subjected to compulsory physical examinations for venereal disease. If a woman was declared to be infected, she would be confined in what was known as a lock hospital until she recovered or her sentence was completed. Men suspected of frequenting prostitutes were not subjected to the same treatment of compulsory checks and confinement. The law was initially aimed at working-class women in towns near military bases, due to the concern that sexually transmitted infections were hampering Britain’s forces. The original act only applied to a few selected naval ports and army towns, but by 1869 the acts had been extended to cover eighteen "subjected districts".
The London Lock Hospital was the first voluntary hospital for venereal disease. It was also the most famous and first of the Lock Hospitals which were developed for the treatment of syphilis following the end of the use of lazar hospitals, as leprosy declined. The hospital later developed maternity and gynaecology services before being incorporated into the National Health Service in 1948 and closing in 1952.
Blue mass was the name of a mercury-based medicine common from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The oldest formula is ascribed to one Barbarossa, in a letter to Francis I of France.
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral sex. STIs often do not initially cause symptoms, which results in a risk of passing the infection on to others. Symptoms and signs of STIs may include vaginal discharge, penile discharge, ulcers on or around the genitals, and pelvic pain. Some STIs can cause infertility.
Abraham Lincoln's health has been the subject of both contemporaneous commentary and subsequent hypotheses by historians and scholars. Until middle age, his health was fairly good for the time. He contracted malaria in 1830 and 1835; the latter was the worse of the two cases. He contracted smallpox in 1863 during an 1863 to 1864 epidemic in Washington, D.C.
The Westmoreland Lock Hospital was a hospital for venereal disease originally located at Donnybrook and later moved to Lazar's Hill, Dublin, Ireland.
The Guatemala syphilis experiments were United States-led human experiments conducted in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. The experiments were led by physician John Charles Cutler, who also participated in the late stages of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Doctors infected 1,300 people, including at least 600 soldiers and people from various impoverished groups with syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid, without the informed consent of the subjects. Only 700 of them received treatment. In total, 5,500 people were involved in all research experiments, of whom 83 died by the end of 1953, though it is unknown whether or not the inoculations were responsible for all these deaths. Serology studies continued through 1953 involving the same vulnerable populations in addition to children from state-run schools, an orphanage, and rural towns, though the intentional infection of patients ended with the original study.
A lock hospital was an establishment that specialised in treating sexually transmitted diseases. They operated in Britain and its colonies and territories from the 18th century to the 20th.
The first recorded outbreak of syphilis in Europe occurred in 1494/1495 in Naples, Italy, during a French invasion. Because it was spread by returning French troops, the disease was known as "French disease", and it was not until 1530 that the term "syphilis" was first applied by the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro. The causative organism, Treponema pallidum, was first identified by Fritz Schaudinn and Erich Hoffmann in 1905. The first effective treatment, Salvarsan, was developed in 1910 by Sahachiro Hata in the laboratory of Paul Ehrlich. It was followed by the introduction of penicillin in 1943.
The outbreaks of sexually transmitted diseases in World War II brought interest in sex education to the public and the government. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, military maneuvers increased worldwide and sexual hygiene and conduct became major problems for the troops. Soldiers and sailors on assignment overseas were often lonely, had time to spare, got homesick, or were just looking for female companionship. This resulted in many men having multiple sex partners, and as a result, became a major health concern. During the Great War, venereal diseases (V.D.) had caused the United States Army to lose 18,000 servicemen per day. Although by 1944 this number had been reduced 30-fold, there were still around 606 servicemen incapacitated daily. This drop in numbers was partly because of the Army's effort to raise awareness about the dangers faced by servicemen through poor sexual hygiene, and also because of the important developments in medicine. In late 1943 a case of gonorrhea required a hospital treatment of 30 days, and curing syphilis remained a 6-month ordeal. By mid-1944, the average case of gonorrhea was reduced to 5 days, and in many cases the patient remained on duty while being treated.
John Friend Mahoney was an American physician best known as a pioneer in the treatment of syphilis with penicillin. He won the 1946 Lasker Award.
The Chamberlain–Kahn Act of 1918 is a U.S. federal law passed on July 9, 1918, by the 65th United States Congress. The law implemented a public health program that came to be known as the American Plan, whose stated goal was to combat the spread of venereal disease.
References
- 1 2 Louis-Courvoisier M (2007)An 18th century controlled trial prompted by a potential shortage of hospital beds., JLL Bulletin: Commentaries on the history of treatment evaluation
- 1 2 Conner, Susan P. The Pox in Eighteenth-Century France, in The Secret Malady: Venereal Disease in Eighteenth-century Britain and France, p. 25
- ↑ (1 September 1834). The Vienna or Dutch Pills, Botanic Watchman (Albany, New York), p. 144
- ↑ Art. 26, The Monthly Review, p. 163 (1766).
- ↑ The Oxford Illustrated Companion to Medicine, p. 628 (3d ed. 2001)
- ↑ Fournier. Treatment of Syphllis, International Medical Magazine (March 1892)
- ↑ Breen, T.H. The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (2004)
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