A treatise on venereal diseases / by A. Vidal (de Cassis) ; translated, with annotations, by George C. Blackman.
- Auguste Vidal de Cassis
- Date:
- 1874
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 Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![from tlie milk of its mirse poison instead of nonrisliment, and it is true it may infect the nurse. Indeed, nurses under the influence of the syphilitic diathesis, and yet having no external evidence of this diathesis, have communicated syphilis to sound children, born of sound parents. In these cases the milk has been the vehicle of the poison. [Mr. Travers argues that as the natural secretions, by a most happy economy, however they may deviate from a healthy stand- ard, cannot be the vehicle of the syphilitic poison, so the milk of a syphilitic nurse cannot affect the child, {Pathology of Ven. Affec- tions, Loud. 1830.) But it is clearly proved, as we have already shown, by abundant testimony, that contrary to the opinion of Mr. Travers, and the disciples of Hunter, the semen of the syphil- itic male may infect his paramour; this law of Hunter as regards the natural secretions, can therefore no longer be maintained. Mr, CoUes, {op. cit. p. 385,) observes, I have never seen or heard of a single instance in which a syphilitic infant (although its mouth be ulcerated) suckled by its own mother, had produced ulceration of her breasts. Mr. Egan {op. cit. p. 817) remarks, that he can safely vouch for the accuracy of the above statement, and similar testi- mony is furnished by Mr. Acton, {op. cit. p. 419,) and Mr. Hennen, {Military Surgery., p. 558.)—Gr. 0. B.] It has been supposed, also, that children have infected their nurse by the saliva which they have deposited on the nipple dur- ing the act of suckling. Cases, however, tending to show this effect, it is well to add, are wanting in those details required to carry conviction to the mind. Yet they have analogy in their support; indeed, it is generally admitted, even by the most de- cided partisans of the Hunterian school, that syphilis may be com- municated by the semen; now saliva and milk are products of secretion, and like the semen may therefore become the vehicle of the syphilitic poison. I repeat that it is very difficult to establish cases of infection by the milk and saliva, independentl}^ of all ex- ternal evidences of the disease. It is still more difficult to decide in certain cases, when syphilitic symptoms appear, whether the nurse or nursling has communicated the poison. As to the infection of the nurse by the child, presenting exter- nal evidences of the disease, nothing is better proved, and cases of the kind abound. Every physician of much practice, and every accoucher, especially those who devote especial attention to the diseases of children, are in the possession of facts proving this contagion. They may be found in the works of writers on syph- ilis who admit the transmissibility of the secondary accidents, and even of those who reject this doctrine. Thus Hunter has recorded several cases of the kind. The following is an analysis of the first. It is copied from the work of M. Bouchut, who declares himself a believer in contagion : A child was accused of having infected its nurse. The father had had gonorrhoea two years before his marriage, and fourteen years before the birth of the child. Both the first and second child were born healthy. The third died at the end of the fifth](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21082340_0481.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
