An enquiry into the value of the signs and symptoms regarded as diagnostic of congenital syphilis in the infant / by Thomas Ballard.

  • Ballard, Thomas.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An enquiry into the value of the signs and symptoms regarded as diagnostic of congenital syphilis in the infant / by Thomas Ballard. 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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    PREFACE. I have reprinted the following paper in order to secure for it a wider circulation than it might obtain in the volume of Transac- tions of the St. Andrews’ Graduates Medical Association. My object is to invite attention to the true nature of those morbid manifestations which are generally regarded as evidence of the Hereditary Transmission of Syphilis to Infants. That this frequently occurs is a canon of faith, and one duly taught to every tyro of medicine. It has been employed as the most cogent argument to induce the Legislature to extend the Contagious Diseases Act to the civil population. If the allegation be true, it is a fact worthy of all the importance claimed for it; but if it be untrue, it is obviously undesirable, and not creditable to our profession, that legislation should be based upon an error for which we are solely responsible. Southwick Place, January, 1874. T. B.