On the foetus in utero : as inoculating the maternal with the peculiarities of the paternal organism in a series of essays now first collected / by Alexander Harvey.

  • Harvey, Alexander, 1811-1889.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the foetus in utero : as inoculating the maternal with the peculiarities of the paternal organism in a series of essays now first collected / by Alexander Harvey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    62/168 (page 42)
    mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmaer 42 Essays on the justifying the supposition formerly advanced, that a woman may somehow acquire syphilis, but have it in the latent form, and subsequently give proof of the reality of the fact by the birth of a syphi- litic child, got by a perfectly healthy man. It is the case of a woman, who, as far as Dr. Maunsell could learn, never herself exhibited any signs of syphi [is, yet produced a syphilitic child in a second marriage, with a husband who never had the disease.* With regard to the communication of secondary syphilis, in relation to Mr. M'Gillivray's theory, Mr. (Sir James) Paget, of St. Bartholomew's Hos- pital, makes an important suggestion. I would venture to suggest, Mr. Paget writes me, that you should try to find whether ever a woman derives secondary syphilis from her husband, unless she con- * Since the publication of my former paper I find that Dr. Mont<^omery of Dublin has been beforehand with me in this ques- tion Ts to syphilis ; and that he seems virtually, though obscurely, to enunciate the doctrine of the constitutional character of the phenomenon exemplified in Lord Morton's mare and Mr. Western s breed of pis. Referring to these well-known cases, Dr. Mont- gomery remlirks Such occurrences appear forcibly to suggest a question, the correct solution of which would be of immense im- portance in the history and treatment of disease. Is it possible that a morbid taint, such as that of syphilis, for instance, havn.g been once communicated to the system of the female [by a con- ception], may influence several ova, and so continue to manitest itself in the offsprim; of subsequent conceptions, when impregna- tion has been effected by a perfectly healthy man and the system of the mother appearing to be at the time, and for a considerab e period previously, quite free from the disease V My belief is cer- tainly in favour of the affirmative.'•-i.xpo.wV.o. of the S>,,u and