Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Syphilis of Yesterday

1955; American Medical Association; Volume: 72; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1001/archderm.1955.03730340001001

1538-3652

Sprague Carleton,

Syphilis Diagnosis and Treatment

Believing that there are values in looking back on the past, I feel that I should record and comment on some of what I recollect of the disease of syphilis. Only a few will see it today. I can go back more than fifty years to when my father before me was in charge of syphilitics of New York City's Metropolitan Hospital. It was a big service. Syphilis then was in more than one sense a very common disease. Most of the then dignified medical profession were outspoken in not wanting to have anything to do with it. This did not help the afflicted or protect the surgeons whose work brought them in contact with their syphilitic blood. This was the heyday of quacks in the venereal disease field. Syphilis was considered a disease of loose low living; there was then no specific micro-organism on which to place