A treatise on syphilis in new-born children and infants at the breast / by P. Diday ; translated by G. Whitley ; with notes and an appendix by F.R. Sturgis.

  • Charles-Paul Diday
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on syphilis in new-born children and infants at the breast / by P. Diday ; translated by G. Whitley ; with notes and an appendix by F.R. Sturgis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not meet with a single observation, or even a désertion ! Perkaps, after ail, we ougkt not to be muck surprised at tke gaps wkick we meet witk in tke works of tke writers of tkis period. Wliere eould tkey kave found room for facts in tke midst of tkeir interminable dissertations on tke primitive seat of tke Frêne h disease, wkick tkey assume, almost unani- mously, to be tke liver ; on its essential cause, wkick tkey agréé in attri- buting to an unkappy conjunction of tke planets, of wkick one of tkem, Grunbeck, 1499, accuses two, Jupiter and Saturn, of kaving done ail tke misekief ! Could it kave been tliat, at tkis period, tke transmission of sypkilis by génération rarely or never occurred ? If' the almost universal silence of tke writers of tke sixteentk century could kave given rise to tkis idea it would kave been dissipated by reading tke following passage, in wkick Gabriel Fallopius (1555), after kaving asserted contagion by tke milk, goes on tkus : “ Præterea videbitis puerulos nascentes ex fœminâ infecta, ut ferant peccata parentum, qui videntur semi-cocti.” To kis mind, indeed, tkis proves only tkat tke malady does not always commence in tke génital organs, but in tke part wkick kas been in contact witk an infected ckannel. Consequently, according to kis views, tkis would only be an instance of wkat we now call, infection during labor. But tke fact obtains indepen- dently of kis erroneous explanation ; and tke ckaracteristic expression semi- cocti bears ample testimony, in kis day as in ours, to tke influence exer- cised by tke poison upon tke ckild during intra-uterine kfe. J. Fernel (1556) adopts as real ail tke possible agents of infection, tke milk, tke saliva, tke sweat, and otker sécrétions. Tke semen and ovum alone are not, perkaps, comprised in kis énumération. Kondelet (1560) furniskes us, at last, witk a fact. A fact ! sometking precious for tkat period, despite tke brevity of kis description. “ Ego vidi puerum nasci totum co-opertum (sic) pustulis morbi gallici.” Tkis is no longer a vague assertion, it is tke autlior wko kas kimself observed it. Ego vidi. . . . Tke interest attacked to tkis case is doubled wken we reflect tkat tkere is question not only of sypkilis contracted by génération, but also of symptoms existing at birth, a circumstance of wkick even some modem writers on sypkilis deny tke possibility. Tke views of our learned Ambrose Paré (1561) on tkis subject are not easily determined. If we refer, as Malion kas done, to kis tkirty-tkird ckapter, on syphilis occurring in young children, we skould kave no reason to doubt tkat lie kad recognized kereditary transmission ; for tke ckapter begins tkus : “ We often see infants wko are born witk tkis malady, and on wkose bodies numerous pustules appear soon after bk’tk.” But, as previously, wken treating of prognosis (Ckapter Y.), lie déclarés positively tkat “sypkilis is never observed to be transmitted from fatlier to son,” ] iis real meaning becomes clearer. Wken speaking of infants as being boni witk tke disease, ke only means, as it appears to me, tkat tkey are