Anomalies And Curiosities Of Medicine Part 69

Syphilis.--Heretofore the best evidence has seemed to prove that syphilis had its origin in 1494, during the siege of Naples by Charles VIII of France; but in later days many investigators, prominent among them Buret, have stated that there is distinct evidence of the existence of syphilis in prehistoric times. Buret finds evidence of traces of syphilis among the Chinese five thousand years ago, among the Egyptians at the time of the Pharaohs, among the Hebrews and Hindoos in biblic times, and among the Greeks and Romans after Christ. Some American writers claim to have found evidences of syphilitic disease in the skulls and other bones of the prehistoric Indian mounds, thus giving further evidence to the advocates of the American origin of syphilis. The Spaniards claimed that, returning from America in 1493, Columbus brought with him syphilis. Friend says: "One thing is remarkable; the Spaniards, upon their first expedition to America, brought home from thence this contagious disorder, and soon after carried another affection thither, the small-pox, of which the Indian Prince Montezuma died." The first descriptions of syphilis are given under the name of morbus gallicus, while the French in return called it morbus neapolita.n.u.s or mal d'Italie. The name of syphilis was said to have been first given to it by a physician of Verona, in a poem describing the disease. Inspired by heroic epics Fracastor places before us the divinities of paganism, and supposes that a shepherd, whom he called Syphilus, had addressed words offensive to Apollo, and had deserted his altars. To punish him the G.o.d sent him a disease of the genitals, which the inhabitants of the country called the disease of Syphilus.

"Syphilidemque ab eo labem dixere coloni."

Buret traces the origin of the word syphilis from sun, with, and filia, love, the companion of love; which means in plain language that the pox is a disease transmitted more especially by venereal relations. The first great epidemic of syphilis occurred between 1493 and 1496, and attacked all ranks, neither the Church nor the Crown being spared. The ravages of this disease were increased by the treatment with mercury which soon afterward was found in proper doses to be a specific in this disease. It is possible that the terrible manifestations of syphilis of which we read in the older writers were in a great measure due to the enormous doses of mercury. At the present day syphilis is universally prevalent. In his excellent monograph Sturgis estimated in New York, in 1873, that one out of 18 suffered from it; and White of Philadelphia p.r.o.nounces the opinion that "not less than 50,000 people in that city are affected with syphilis." According to Rohe, on this basis Gihon estimates the number of syphilitics in the United States at one time as 2,000,000.

To-day no disease, except possibly tuberculosis, is a greater agency in augmenting the general mortality and furthering sickness than syphilis.

Its hereditary features, the numerous ways in which it may be communicated outside of the performance of the s.e.xual act, and the careful way in which it is kept from the sanitary authorities render it a scourge which, at the present day, we seem to have no method of successfully repressing.

Modern Mortality from Infectious Diseases.--As to the direct influence on the mortality of the most common infectious diseases of the present day, tuberculosis, universally prevalent, is invariably in the lead. No race or geographic situation is exempt from it. Osler mentions that in the Blood Indian Reserve of the Canadian Northwest Territories, during six years, among a population of about 2000 there were 127 deaths from pulmonary consumption. This enormous death-rate, it is to be remembered, occurred in a tribe occupying one of the finest climates of the world, among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, a region in which consumption is extremely rare among the white population, and in which cases of tuberculosis from the Eastern provinces do remarkably well. Mayo-Smith quotes a table ill.u.s.trating the annual deaths (based on the returns from 1887 to 1891) from certain infectious diseases per 10,000 European inhabitants. The figures for each disease give a rough measure of its prevalence in different countries. The large figures as to small-pox show the absence in Italy and "Hieronymi Fracastorii,"

Veronae, 1530. Statistics and Sociology, New York, 1885.

Austria of vaccination; diphtheria seems to be very fatal in Germany and Austria; Italy has a large rate for typhoid fever, and the same is true of the other fevers; France, Germany, and Austria show a very large rate for tuberculosis, while Italy has a small rate.