Condyloma, a primary form of venereal disease identical with sibbens / by David Skae.

  • Skae, David, 1814-1873.
Date:
[1844]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Condyloma, a primary form of venereal disease identical with sibbens / by David Skae. 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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    She had also a cutaneous eruption, of which Dr Adams says: “ These are small elevations above the cuticle; she showed me some on her legs and arms, which seemed pustular, but were quite dry.”* Other cases are referred to of a similar kind, from a review of which he arrives at the conclusion, that sibbens is different from the venereal disease. Its prevalence in Scotland is explained by Dr Adams by reference to the habit, which, he says, Avas peculiar to some districts of Scotland in those days, of smoking out of a common pipe—of “ using a single pipe for a whole family, and almost for a Avhole village” ! The tradition regarding the origin of the disease in Scotland was, that Crom- well’s soldiers had introduced it and the smoking of tobacco at the same time, by means of their pipes. The idea generally entertained of this disease by, I believe, all avIio have written on the subject, in common with Dr Adams and the writers referred to, that it is communicated by kissing, or by drinking out of the same vessel or smoking out of the same pipe, I am inclined entirely to discredit. I believe it has arisen, along with the idea that this is a disease which chiefly or solely, in some instances, affects the mouth, from the fact that in every case the mouth is more or less affected at the same time as the genital organs. The affection of the mouth is one of the consti- tutional effects of the disease, to be observed, I believe, in every case of condyloma at some period of its course. And I have little doubt that the erroneous ideas generally entertained re- garding the nature and mode of propagation of this disease, have originated in the desire on the part of those affected with it to conceal the real origin of their complaint. Had the genital organs been examined in every case where the mouth Avas affect- ed, I believe the medium of contagion Avould have never been suspected to have been merely kisses, tobacco pipes, or common drinking cups. Mr Carmichael, believing Avith Dr Adams that this disease Avas endemic in Scotland, particularly in the western part of it, conjectured that it must be frequently transmitted to Ireland, and accordingly he recognised its frequent, almost daily, occur- rence in the Lock Hospital of Dublin. These were undoubtedly cases of condyloma, and not more peculiar to Dublin, if the account given by Dr Wallace of his exanthematic syphilis is correct, than to the west of Scotland. * On Morbid Poisons, by Joseph Adams, M.D., p. 183-8. London, 1807.