The unity or duality of syphilis historically considered / by J.L. Milton.

  • Milton, J. L. (John Laws), 1820-1898.
Date:
1886
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The unity or duality of syphilis historically considered / by J.L. Milton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED. (Reprinted from the Edinburgh Medical Journal for May 1886. Neither the sentence of death passed on duality at a well- remembered meeting of the Pathological Society of London, nor the experiments of the German physiologists, have availed to convince some men that the doctrine of two poisons must be given up, or even induced them to think that there is more reason now to doubt its vitality tlian there was ten years ago. Proof enough of this lies scattered through the various journals. In one of his last contributions to the literature of the branch which he so long adorned, Dr Bumstead says that such a statement as that unity is dead is a fraud upon medical history, and a source of confusion to the student; and even Professor Auspitz, one of the most thoroughgoing uncompromising defenders of unity, expresses him- self in his latest communication on the subject rather less forcibly, it appears to me, than he did. This justly famous pathologist asks the question, Wliere are we to-day in respect to syphilis ? To which I should say the answer must be, As far as concerns the unity or duality of the dis- ease pretty much where we were some 350 years ago, when the reign of confusion began, and where we are likely to be 350 years hence, nnless some more rigorous mode of investigation is adopted than I have ever had the good fortune to see put in force. I propose, therefore, without entering upon any pathological questions whatever, to take what is, after all, indispensably neces- sary for a due examination of them, the historical part of the sub- ject, and ask my readers, after weighing what I have put forward, to say whether they believe or do not believe that soft non- infecting sores were seen and described long before the epoch usually assigned to the great outbreak of syphilis ? Secondly, whether they can point to a single authentic description of consti- tutunial sypliilis prior to the fifteenth century ? And, lastly, whether, after having satisfactorily disposed of these two points, tliey feel inclined to affirm or to deny that sypliilis, whatever be the deci-