Report on dermatology : syphilis and other exanthemata / by Lunsford P. Yandell.

  • Yandell, Lunsford P. (Lunsford Pitts), 1805-1878.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on dermatology : syphilis and other exanthemata / by Lunsford P. Yandell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    slain in Barbary) and sold it for Tunney;”—[tunney-fish, I presume— L. P. Y., jr.]—“and that upon that foul and high nourishment was the origin of that disease. Which may well be; for that it is certain that the cannibals in the West hides eat man's flesh) and the West Indes were full of the Pock when they were first discovered. And at this day the Mortalest Poysons practised by the West Indians have some mixture of the blood, or fat, or flesh of man. And divers Witches, and Sorceresses, as well amongst the Heathen as amongst the Christians, have fed upon Man’s Flesh, to aid (as it seemeth) their imagination with high and foul vapors.” This absurd theory of Lord Bacon’s, it is unnecessary to remark, is not entertained at the present day. Among other conjectures as to the origin of syphilis, sexual inter- course on the part of soldiers with mares affected by farcy has been suggested; also sexual intercourse between the human species and the hog, and sexual commerce between individuals of different races and climates. These doctrines have no followers among modern syphi- lologists. It is an interesting fact that almost every nation has been charged with the paternity of the pocks. It has been called the American dis- ease, the English disease, the French disease, the Italian disease, the Polish disease, the Turkish disease, and so forth to the end of the chapter of peoples. Wars have been, in all likelihood, an important factor in the de- velopment and spread of syphilis, and the armies are most probably the authors of the nicknames just enumerated; for we know that sol- diers are not remarkable for chastity, and are not niggardly in the bestowal of hard names on the enemy. Whatever be the origin of syphilis, and probably we shall never determine the manner of its birth or the country of its nativity, this much we do know, that syphilis is to-day universal in its dissemination, and is steadily increasing in all lands, and that its spread is most marked in countries of the highest civilization. Indeed, it may be said that civilization and syphilis march hand in hand. The prophylaxis of syphilis, this most loathsome of acquirable diseases, is one of the great questions of state medicine ol to-day. So far no practicable plan for its arrest has been devised, and I treely