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 Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    patrc ad filium/^ Blit almost immediately after the truth had been proclaimed error seems to have resumed its empire, for Nicholas Massa (1532), to whom it was sought to give the credit of tliis discovery, coniines himself to quoting the case of three children, of the respective ages of three, six, and eleven years, whom he had seen affected witli syphilis. And, as he adds tliat he could not liave contracted it either by coitus or suckling, it was no doubt assumed that lie concluded that they had inherited it. But besides that sucli a view is not to be found in any part of his work, tlie age of these patients alone shows that there could be no question with them of such a mode of propagation; for it is, in general, long before the third year that the symptoms of hereditary .syjihilis are developed, and it is almost unexampled that they have been delayed until the sixth and eleventh year. Everything seems to prove, therefore, that they had contracted the malady after birth, by contact with persons suffering from communicable forms of syphilis; unles.s, indeed, these had been instances of the retarded congenital syphilis to be mentioned hereafter. Antonins Gallus.(1510) writes, it is true : Sensere quoquehanc labem virgines et infantes,” but it is clear that he does not allude, in this phrase, to congimital syphilis, for infants are oidy introduced to complete the picture iii ivliich he shows the ravages of the disease attacking “tarn viros quam focminas, pueros quam senes, proceres quam mancipia, magistratus quam humilem plebem !” The more we advance, the more docs the light acquired lose in brightness. Thus, J. B. Theodosius (loll) merely says that “he fears this malady may be hereditary.” But, to justify these suspi- cions, he has no better proof to offer than the observations of three brothers whom he had seen die of the consequences of the French disease. It appears that, according to his mode of reasoning, they could not all three have contracted it in the ordinarv way, and that it was more reasonable to look for the coimnon germ in their parents than in an impure connection on the part of each of them. jMontanus (1550) also alludes only to transmission by the nurse^s milk. ]\Iusa Brassavole (1553), however, a very learned writer, dis- tinctly records tliree modes of transmission : I. That in which the
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