A treatise on syphilis in new-born children and infants at the breast / by P. Diday ; translated by G. Whitley.

  • Charles-Paul Diday
Date:
1859
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. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    questions,, to rely by preference upon the experience of the older writers, who, unfettered by the systematic preoccupations of our period, relate simply what they have seen, and not what has been taught them. Thus to defend the rights of observation against the pretensions of theory is the duty of every cultivator of medical science, and one Avhich the practice of our art furnishes ns only too many opportunities of fulfilling. But the obligation becomes more imperative and sacred wheu, as in the case of congenital syphilis, the usurpations of imagination over reality reveal themselves in the fo]*m of irreparable injuries to the health, the lives, and the honour of individuals, families, and nations. A man has just been cured of syphilis; hoAv soon can he procreate safely ? One, two, three successive pregnancies have terminated before the full time in the expulsion of an atrophied and, as it were, blighted foetus. Is this a sign of venereal disease in the mother—a sufficient reason for subjecting her to specific treatment ? A child is born covered with characteristic blots. Can Ave, Avithout sci;uple, give it to a healthy Avoman to suckle ? A nurse, previously robust and free from any venereal antecedents, pi*esents ulcerations on the breasts having some resemblance to chancres. One school affirms that they are primary, and cannot be anything else. Alust we accept its dictum, and deny that they may have resulted from suckling a syphilitic child, abstaining, consequently, from giving mercury to this Aroman ? These are some of the hundred questions Avhich practice daily evokes. But to these problems, Avhich ask for and com- mand an exact solution, experience often ansAvers in the affirmative —a given doctrine in the negative. It is not surprising, then, that Avhen it becomes necessary to clioose between tAvo such advisers, our choice is ahvays made in favour of the fact against the pretended right. We may take pleasure in the spectacle of the human mind labouring to develop its synthetic creations; Ave may ourselves sometimes yield to temptation, and risk some steps on this path. But, in the face of dangers so grave, the interest of a system pales before that of humanity: positivism is no longer the mere desire of the philosopher, it rises to the rank of a social necessity, and everything must be placed in subordination to its laAvs. Such, at least, is my opinion; such aaIII be my invariable rule of conduct in the course of this Avork. To embrace in a complete and methodical classification tlie
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