Household syphilis (syphilis oeconomica) : with observations on acquired syphilis in infants / by J.A. Nixon.

  • Nixon, John Alexander, 1874-1951.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Household syphilis (syphilis oeconomica) : with observations on acquired syphilis in infants / by J.A. Nixon. 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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    There is no need to multiply such quotations. All syphilologists agree as to the transmissibility of syphilis in the family and the household. We are sometimes inclined to regard the accident as so rare that it need not be considered as a practical possibility. Many of us have never seen an instance. Should we see it more frequently if we inquired more assiduously ? Lately several families have come under my notice in which syphilis spread by domestic means of infection. Case 1.—In 1907 a girl, E. B., aged 15, attended at the Bristol Royal Infirmary suffering from a chancre in the centre of the dorsum of her tongue, with mucous tubercles on the tonsils, shotty glands in the neck, a sentinel bubo under the chin, and later a faint roseolous rash. Her mother had been under the care of Dr. Kenneth Wills at the Bristol General Hospital four months previously on account of secondary syphilis, which she admitted had been acquired by intercourse with a man other than her husband. At the time when the daughter came under my observation I found the father, a man of 62, an in-patient at the Eye Hospital with recent secondary syphilitic iritis. There was no evidence showing where the primary sore had been, and there was no scar suggesting that there had been a genital chancre. Case 2.—Early in 1907 a married woman, Mrs. Iv., who had previously had one healthy child (Ivy K., aged 2 years), was deserted by her husband who had recently to his wife’s knowledge acquired syphilis from a prostitute. Mrs. K. was not aware that he had transmitted the disease to her ; but presently, finding herself pregnant and deserted by her husband, she obtained admission to the Union Infirmary, and was delivered of a heredo-syphilitic baby that died soon after birth. Mrs. K. left the Infirmary and went to live with her married sister, Mrs. B., taking with her Ivy K., her daughter, aged 2 years. Within two months Ivy K. came under observation at the Bristol Royal Infirmary with acquired syphilis, sore throat, roseolous rash, and condylomata. The site of the primary chancre was not discovered. Two months later Mrs. B.’s infant, aged 8 months, acquired a chancre on his lower lip, and trans- mitted the infection to his mother’s breast, where a primary sore on the nipple developed. Both Mrs. B. and her baby persevered with treatment, but suffered from severe secondaries, and later from gummata. I have lost sight of Mrs. K. and her daughter Ivy.