SYPHILIS.
Historical. No dogmatic expression is possible as to the origin and antiquity of syphilis. Certain facts are definitely known, while other mere conjectures persuade some and repel others. Dr. F. Buret has written a scholarly work purporting to prove that it was known more than five thousand years ago among the Asiatics, the Bomans, the Greeks and the Egyptians. Many regard his demonstration as conclusive.
Captain Dabray3 refers to the works of Hoan ty, written 2637 B.C., who graphically describes what would fairly seem to be typical cases of syphilis. In short, there is a very large amount of literature on the history of this disease, but little likelihood of the question of its origin ever being positively settled.
Nothing however is better known historically than that syphilis was rampant as an epidemic and pandemic in Europe almost coincidently with the discovery of the New World by Columbus.
For a fuller description of this enormous subject, and for illustrations, all of which are repulsive in the extreme, consult the various text-books and atlases on venereal diseases. The horrors of syphilis being in a measure known to every mature person, it is not deemed necessary to give the same space to its consideration as to that of its congener, gonorrhoea, which is, as we have pointed out, in many respects more thankless to treat and more terrible in its results than even syphilis.
"The epidemic of syphilis which stands out so boldly in medical history occurred about the time (the latter part of the year 1494) when Charles VIII., king of France, with a large army, invaded Italy with the intent of taking possession of the kingdom of Naples, which he claimed by right of inheritance. Charles left Eome on his way to Naples January 28, and reached the latter city February 21, 1495. After a time the Neapolitans revolted against the authority of Charles, and, aided by a Spanish army under the command of Gonsalvo of Cordova, they endeavored to drive the French out of Italy. There were then three armies encamped near Naples, and about this time the fearful epidemic broke out. It is not definitely established that the disease first appeared among the troops, but they certainly were attacked, and were one means of conveying the disease into other countries. There is ample evidence to prove that within a few years the disease had spread over the greater part of Europe. Thus we find that syphilis was by the Neapolitans called the morbus Gallicus, by the French mal de Naples, and was also called the Polish, Spanish, Turkish, and Christian disease. It was also named after some saints, and was called the disease of the holy man Job, of St. Leonard, St. Clement, St. Mevius, and St. Boche. It was not known as the American disease until twenty years after the return of Columbus from his first trip".
We may conclude from historical readings that there is great probability that syphilis existed in remote antiquity, and that with the widespread libertinism in Europe at the latter part of the fifteenth century it redeveloped in France, Italy and Spain with hitherto unknown virulence, and that it was subsequently carried wherever Europeans travelled until it has come to be enormously prevalent in modern times, even infecting many aboriginal tribes. Syphilis is especially malignant when occurring in a community for the first time in the great historical European outbreak whole families were destroyed and the most revolting deformities and loathsome eruptions were common. Similar malignity has been shown by recent outbreaks among the savage tribes of this continent, and in other localities, for civilized races are now mildly protected by the syphilis which was worked out with special fury on their ancestors.
Nature of Syphilis.Syphilis is a chronic, infectious and inoculable disease, transmissible to posterity. It begins with a local "sore", or "chancre", called the "initial lesion", which is the result of the inoculation from another syphilitic individual of a special and peculiar virus, the minutest portion of which is sufficient to communicate the disease. In many respects syphilis resembles the exanthematous fevers (small-pox, scarlet fever, measles, etc.), having a period of incubation, invasion, eruption, persistence, decline and convalescence. Like them it is attended with practical immunity from a second attack, at least for long periods of time, though second attacks of syphilis are almost as well authenticated as second attacks of the contagious fevers.
Unlike them, however, in untreated cases the period corresponding to convalescence is prolonged for the remainder of the patient's life, during which time grave injuries are occurring in various parts of the body.
In some respects it also resembles leprosy and tuberculosis, producing a proliferation of new and foreign cells in the tissues, and being protracted and progressive in its nature. In its later manifestations syphilis is remarkable in simulating almost every other disease without exactly resembling any of them. This is not difficult to understand when we consider that the infection eventually invades every organ and tissue in the body, producing functional and organic changes in them which may cause disorders of almost any kind.