Syphilis : its nature & diffusion popularly considered / by James George Beaney ... With fifteen coloured plates.

  • Beaney, James George, 1828-1891.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Syphilis : its nature & diffusion popularly considered / by James George Beaney ... With fifteen coloured plates. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    syphilis, and the profession are thus invited to a more precise examination of the many grave forms in which it manifests itself. It is only in recent years that the subject has been so exhaustively treated, and has attracted the attention of so many distinguished observers. Ricord, the great syphi- lographer of the age, has led the van in this valuable and important course of investigation, and has by his acumen and skill placed humanity under a deeper obligation to him than to any other of the medical luminaries of which this century is so proud. Pathological demonstrations have been made in abundance to verify the opinions that have from time to time been ad- vanced in reference to organic syphilis, and each organ has been found to exhibit varied indications of the virulent action of the syphilitic poison. The results of such observations in the valuable records that are now accumulated, go to show how much was till lately unknown of this direful plague of the human race, owing to the absence of pre- cise information and intelligent recognition of its opera- tions. Being so little understood, it is not to be wondered at that at certain periods of our history, as a race, it operated as a destructive epidemic, and slew thousands with the rapidity of a plague. It was, however, only known by its external phenomena, the fact of its invasion of all the tissues being scarcely surmised, although now there is no doubt but that when it was so alarmingly fatal, it became so by reason of the poisoning of the functional sources of vitality. There is even now a little scepticism left in the least advanced minds, and unwillingness to accept the new discoveries, hold- ing—for the sake of old associations—to the ancient opinion of the skin and appendages being the sole seat of syphilis. This unwillingness is, however, bending before the weight of accumulating evidence, so that few in the profession who have had opportunities of investigation now oppose the