A treatise on venereal diseases / by A. Vidal, (de Cassis) ; translated, with annotations, by George C. Blackman.

  • Vidal, Auguste-Théodore, 1803-1856.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on venereal diseases / by A. Vidal, (de Cassis) ; translated, with annotations, by George C. Blackman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    proof showing the connection existing between the affections observed before the fifteenth century and those which occurred subsequently to this period? Further, as I have already stated, the diseases called leprous, have not yet disappeared; but, having been more carefully studied, and better specialized, the part that lepra plays in the production of these affections, has been reduced to so narrow a compass that it would seem no longer to exist. That belonging to syphilis could not be shown without under- standing the dependence existing between the primitive and the consecutive accidents, the cutaneous eruptions; now this depend- ence was unknown to the ancients; ignorant of the interval between the phenomenon of inoculation (primitive accident), and that of infection (consecutive accident), these two elements of the same malady have passed for two distinct diseases, proceeding from a different cause. Perhaps this kind of incubation of the consecutive affection, was in ancient times of longer duration, from circumstances which we cannot appreciate, and thus a new obstacle has been added to our progress. Fifteenth Century.—During this epoch many persons were smit- ten with a scourge which has been represented as cruel and dis- gusting. The skin of the afflicted was covered with numerous pustules, agonizing pains racked their limbs and head, resembling those mow called osteocopes rhumatoi'des; these were accompanied with sleeplessness, scalding of the urine, and fever. It was partic- ularly during the latter part of this century (1495), and at Naples, whilst it was occupied by the French army commanded by Charles VIII., that this scourge was most violent, and counted its greatest numbers of victims. The rapidity with which the disease spread, the extent of country over which it travelled, gave to it the char- acter of an epidemic; on which account, this period in the history of syphilis has always been known under the name of the epidemic of the fifteenth century. But if, as was thought by some authors, this was a new malady, others again regarded it as a degeneration or aggravation of an- other disease. It was a kind of maranique pest, or indeed, an affection analagous to the epidemic lichen of Hippocrates, or a mentagra, having also an epidemic character. It is not surprising that, at this epoch, a certain conjunction of the stars should have been regarded as its cause; and still less that the atmosphere, the breath of speech, should have been considered the vehicle of the morbific principle. What first struck the observer, was the state of the skin covered with pustules, and the pains in the limbs with which the patient was tormented. The lesions of the genital or- gans were unknowD, or appeared of but little consequence, com- pared with those which shortly followed. It is even probable that these lesions, which at this day are called primitive accidents, were sometimes completely absent. For my own part, I am in- clined to think that such was the case, especially since I have proved in so positive a manner, the transmissibility of the pus- tular form of the syphilitic eruptions; indeed, at a certain pe-