Syphilis / by Jonathan Hutchinson.

Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Syphilis / by Jonathan Hutchinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and of the true virus. Further, it may happen, and it often does, that either a contagion from the inflam- matory material alone takes place, or that the effects of this entirely overpower and destroy the specific virus which was mixed with it. It is to the study of these two classes of local phenomena thatwe will nowproceed. On infective or hard chancres. — If the virus of syphilis in a pure form be inoculated, it rarely produces any irritation at first. A period of from three to five weeks will elapse before anything is observed. At the end of that time a little red spot will be noticed, which itches more or less, and which, ex- tending from day to day, soon becomes a papule, and by the end of a week or ten days is, probably, a little indurated disc or button. The induration is usually very marked, and its margins definite. There is not much surrounding inflammation, and the surface of the ulcer usually secretes but little. In some cases, indeed, there may be no ulceration whatever, and not the slightest secretion. At the end of five weeks from the date of contagion the induration will, probably, be marked. It will continue for a longer or shorter period (usually in relation to treatment pu rsued), but it never, even when wholly let alone, persists indefinitely, and frequently it vanishes after a very short duration. Occasionally it may last for months. The number of these indurated spots, or chancres, will depend upon the number of different places which were inoculated at the same time, just as is the case with vaccination vesicles. It is not very often that more than one is seen, and if there be two, three, or more, they are always at the same stage of progress at the same time. No new ones are ever pi'oduced subsequent to the full developmentof the first.* If, for the sake of experiment, * It is possible that certain rare exceptions to this statement may occur. I shall advert to them subsequently in speaking of satellite chancres.