Who gave the world syphilis? : the Haitian myth / by Richard C. Holcomb ; with introduction by C.S. Butler.

  • Holcomb, R. C. (Richmond Cranston), 1874-1945
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Who gave the world syphilis? : the Haitian myth / by Richard C. Holcomb ; with introduction by C.S. Butler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lenten-like purgatory of starvation and purging became as bloodless as so many ghosts, and ere the moon had completed its orb many relapsed into a worse condition. “Let us not talk then,” he writes, “of the disease being brought over to us by Indians, thus openly exposing our simplicity by so saying” (Nec dicamus morbum ab Indis trasfretasse ad nos. Quoniam fatuitatem profitebimur, di- centes). And this same year (1542) Fracastorius in his De Contagione, in some extended comments on the wood states, “I have observed many patients who drank this wine and were made ill by it, and lapsed into a condition beyond cure.” So on approaching Ruiz de Isla’s chapter on the Palo, in view of the argument by which he clinches for the dis¬ cerning, the fact that the disease arose in the island of Espanola, we ought most certainly find there the further particulars he assures us are so convincing. Chapter Ten, the Wood It has pleased Divine Pity, says Ruiz, in giving us the ulcers and afflictions, to also give us the medicine for them, as with this sickness, which always had its origin and nativity in the island of Espanola, as I have said in the first chapter of this treatise. The people of this island were cured in this way: They were put in a bed raised above the ground, well sheltered from all air, and, taking a certain wood they have for this sickness, they cut it into small pieces, and boiled it in water until it was diminished to one third. The diet they took with it is of increditable description, they eating nothing except a bread made from a root which they called cassava and made into a biscuit. With this they drank for medicine the water cooked with the wood, principally nig]it and morning, each time one-half pint, and during the day ail the water they wished. What they drank night and morn¬ ing, being well sheltered, produced some sweating. And then after this cure had continued for 20 days they ate a very thin piece of river fish, and a small sour fruit of their land which they call guavas. And by means of this