Syphilis in the 16th century and its social ramifications
Fifty to a hundred years after its appearance in Naples the disease became less virulent and less lethal.
During the 1520’s it became clear to historians and physicians of the time that the disease was contracted and spread by sexual intercourse.
In Europe the authorities had become so concerned with the rise in venereal diseases that they attempted to control prostitution and sexual encounters outside marriage.
During the 18th century medical thinking on the disease began to advance.
In 1736 Jean Astruc, a French royal physician and professor of medicine at Montpellier and Paris, wrote one of the first great medical works on syphilis and venereal disease, De Morbus Veneris.
In 1893 Jean-Alfred Fournier, a French dermatologist who worked as an understudy to Ricord, published a work on the treatment of the disease but cautioned there was no cure.
He described the association of late stage syphilis with a wasting and paralysis disorder known as tabes dorsalis.
Sir William Osler (1849-1919), a founder of the John Hopkins School of Medicine and pioneer of modern medical and clinical education and later Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford,
... described the history of the sudden appearance of this new and terrible disease in 16th century Europe.
“A mysterious epidemic, hitherto unknown, which struck terror into all hearts by the rapidity of its spread, the ravages it made, and the apparent helplessness of the physicians to cure it.”
(Brussels: Syphilis was old, but MDs were discovering it, about 400 years after it actually appeared and spread)
From about the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century the incidence of syphilis in developed countries declined, except in times of war.
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In the early 16th century, the main treatments for syphilis were guaiacum, or holy wood, and mercury skin inunctions or ointments, and treatment was by and large the province of barber and wound surgeons.
Sweat baths were also used as it was thought induced salivation and sweating eliminated the syphilitic poisons.
Guaiacum was not effective as a cure and the alternative was mercury.
Mercury had been used as a treatment for epidemic diseases since Guy de Chauliac, (personal physician to the Pope in Avignon), advocated its use in his work La Grande Chirurgie in 1363, and this became the accepted treatment for syphilis.
Paracelsus (1493-1541) derided the use of guaiacum as useless and expensive and instead promoted mercury, metals being one of Paracelsus’ favoured medicinal treatments for disease.
After a time however he did recognise its toxicity when administered as an elixir and resorted to using it either as an inunction, an ointment made from metallic mercury and rubbed into the skin, or as a suffumigation,
... the inhalation of and bathing of the body in fumes, or indeed both at the same time.
Many physicians doubted the efficacy of mercury, especially as it had terrible side effects and many patients died of mercury poisoning.
Mercury had terrible side effects causing neuropathies, kidney failure, and severe mouth ulcers and loss of teeth,
... and many patients died of mercurial poisoning rather than from the disease itself.
Treatment would typically go on for years and gave rise to the saying,
“A night with Venus, and a lifetime with mercury”
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Gerhard van Swieten (1700-1772), an Austrian army surgeon, introduced the internal use of corrosive sublimate, mercuric chloride, or liquor Swietenii, which stayed in use as treatment for syphilis for many years...
In the late 19th century, calomel, mercurous chloride, a purgative and laxative, was used as an inunction and in tablet form and later as an injection.
Ammoniated and salicylated mercury ointments were developed and the pharmaceutical formulae for unguentum hydrargyri ammoniate and unguentum hydrargyri salicilate were still in the Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary in 1955.
(Brussels: isn't it impressive, how long the treatment of syphilis was Mercury?)
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When it was realised by physicians that the toxic effects of mercury often outweighed any benefits it might have had, they looked for alternatives.
The Polish surgeon-general Friedrich Zittman (1671-1757) mixed a drug consisting of the root of SARSAPARILLA with traces of mercury and called his elixir Decoctum Zittmani.
The English surgeon William Wallace (1791-1837) introduced IODINE therapy, potassium iodide with small doses of mercury.
In the late 19th century various other metals such as tellurium, vanadium, platinum and gold were tried but were not effective.
In 1905, Fritz Richard Schaudinn, a German zoologist, and Erich Hoffmann, a dermatologist, discovered Spirochaeta pallida (the bacteria was spiral shaped and white under dark ground illumination, now called Treponema pallidum) to be the causative organism of syphilis.
In 1906, August Paul von Wassermann, a German bacteriologist and an assistant of Robert Koch, developed a complement fixation serum antibody test for syphilis – the “Wasserman reaction”.
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In 1906 Paul Ehrlich, a German histological chemist at the Robert Koch Institute who later in his life founded the sciences of chemotherapy and immunology.
He had been experimenting for some years with the use of ARSENIC compounds in treating trypanosomiasis.
Ehrlich then began experimenting with arsenic compounds in treating syphilis in rabbits.
His experiments were not very successful as most of the earlier arsenicals he experimented with were too toxic,
... but in 1909 he and his assistant Sahachiro Hata, a Japanese bacteriologist, finally found success with the compound dioxy-diamino-arsenobenzol-dihydrochloride which they called drug “606”.
This led in 1910 to the manufacture of arsphenamine, which subsequently became known as Salvarsan, or the “magic bullet”, and later in 1912, neoarsphenamine, Neo-salvarsan, or drug “914”.
In 1908 Ehrlich was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery.
Albert Neisser, a German physician said:
“Arsenobenzol, designated “606,” whatever the future may bring to justify the present enthusiasm, is now actually a more or less incredible advance in the treatment of syphilis
....and in many ways is superior to the old mercury – as valuable as this will continue to be – because of its eminently powerful and eminently rapid spirochaeticidal property.”
LW Harrison, a medical officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War I, described the effectiveness of Salvarsan and Neosalvarsan on soldiers who contracted syphilis during the war. [18]
Arsenic however, while being able to cure syphilis whereas mercury wasn’t, had many drawbacks – administration of treatment was complex requiring many injections over a long period of time, and it also produced toxic side effects.
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In 1916, A. Robert and Benjamin Sauton discovered the trypanocidal properties of bismuth, and in 1921, Robert Sazerac, Constantin Levaditi and Louis Fournier successfully treated syphilis with bismuth.
It then became apparent that for arsenic to be effective, it had to be combined with small doses of either bismuth or mercury.
Arsenic, mainly arsphenamine, neoarsphenamine, acetarsone and mapharside, in combination with bismuth or mercury, then became the mainstay of treatment for syphilis until the advent of penicillin in 1943.
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In 1917 Julius Wagner-Jauregg, an Austrian physician, introduced the treatment of neurosyphilis with FEVER therapy by infecting the patient with MALARIA, then treating the malaria with quinine.
The observation had been made that after a febrile illness the symptoms of NEUROSYPHILIS diminished, and the rationale was that it was easier to treat malaria with quinine than the syphilis with mercury or arsenic.
Fred A. Kislig and Walter M. Simpson, two American physicians, introduced in 1936 the treatment of electropyrexia, using a short-wave apparatus to induce PYREXIA in a patient to treat syphilis and gonorrhoea.
---------- Brussels: I find this cool! So they were doing hyperthermia-like treatment for syphilis long ago!
And giving another pathogen to cause fever: malaria... to treat syphilis!
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In 1943 PENICILLIN was introduced as a treatment for syphilis by John Mahoney, Richard Arnold and AD Harris. [22]
Mahoney and his colleagues at the US Marine Hospital, Staten Island, treated four patients with primary syphilis chancres with intramuscular injections of penicillin four-hourly for eight days for a total of 1,200,000 units by which time the syphilis had been cured.
(Br's note: 8 days of penicillin cured syphilis in early stage and 2nd stage!!!)
This became a turning point in the treatment for syphilis as penicillin was shown to be highly effective when administered during either its primary or secondary stages, and it had few side effects of any significance when compared to mercury or arsenic.
“Syphilis was once a dreaded and dreadful disease involving millions of US citizens.
Before the introduction of penicillin, the heavy-metal cure often caused thousands of deaths each year.
The morbidity and mortality of the disease itself was horrendous, involving all ages from the fetus to the elderly.”
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Comment on iodine: I always supplemented iodine during lyme treatment and felt good with it.
It seemed my body consumed a lot of iodine during active lyme. It felt like it was never enough.
Iodine was used as treatment against syphilis centuries ago!
Most of lyme sufferers seem to lack iodine and all of them (us) have/ had thyroid-related problems.
Iodine is one of the main substances that supports thyroid function...
------------------
Another interesting point is the Arsenic story.
I took arsenic homeopathic during lyme, but I don't remember anymore when, in which situation.
But recently, I had an episode of strong infection with high skin inflammation, and I swear Arsenic album in homeopathy did relieve me from some symptoms.
I know Arsenic album or other Arsenic compounds are used in homeopathy by doctors such as Dr. Rau or dr. K.
It works because Arsenicum is a poison that acts in many body systems, body parts, it messes up and destroys many body parts = exactly like lyme.
That is why the homeopathic DILUTION of Arsenic works as an antidote for such widespread tissue destruction.
Plus the feeling of being poisoned, that we all feel during lyme or flares - brain fog, extreme fatigue, lack of air....- fits to poisoning symptoms by arsenic.
Homeopathy works by giving a substance that is similar to the disease: the body cannot 'take' 2 similar diseases, so it will make lyme symptoms diminish...
The same way that the body will not 'catch' 2 SIMULTANEOUS cold viruses simultaneously, but just one at a time...
How does the body do that? I don't know. It's just by observation, that homeopaths 'discovered' that. Phenomenology.
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Keebler
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People with syphilis were treated as badly as Lyme patients before they got it under control.
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bejoy
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Thank you for this information, Brussels.
I understand that Arsenicum Album is sometimes used for parasites.
I suspect that a significant number of people diagnosed with Lyme actually have, or also have Syphilis (Treponema Pallidum), or some other strain of spirochetal Treponema.
According to what I have read, Treponema is highly transferrable to the fetus, and apparently can be transferred for multiple generations, so it could run in families without a recent exposure.
I don't believe that a late stage case of Treponema is "cured" by Penicillin any more than Lyme is. Once the disease goes intracellular, that form doesn't respond to the same antibiotics as the spirochete.
According to energy testing, it appears that people with the nobby knuckles of rheumatoid arthritis may have a form of intracellular Treponema in their knuckles.
This could cause an autoimmune response as the body tries to kill the infected cells.
However, based on what I have seen, people with this condition rarely get a positive for active Syphilis in a blood test.
I know some people who are using the "emotional dynamics MP3 meditation tones" and their inflamed knuckles and knees keep getting smaller.
An herb called Chuchuhuasi from south America also seems to be quite helpful for many of the intracellular forms of bacteria, including mycoplasma, that can contribute to arthritis and autoimmune conditions.
I think Chuchuhuasi is a powerful herb for intracellular Lyme, but I have not seen it in the literature yet. It was given to me by a doctor of Chinese medicine who had also studied with shamans in Peru.
-------------------- bejoy!
"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." -Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 1918 | From Alive and Well! | Registered: Feb 2007
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Arsenicum album and other forms of Arsenicum homeopathic are used for a great variety of symptoms, one of it is joint / Rheumatism / inflammation / burning + feverish problems.
It also helps brain fog, negative thoughts / feelings, extreme fatigue / extreme anxiety: the exact picture of poisoning by arsenicum.
I guess there are MANY pathogens that are passed from mother to child, and also toxins, such as heavy metals, glyphosate, pesticides...
But chasing one by one is not the way to go, unless we find the master-mind pathogens (like Borrelia in lyme disease, for example).
I guess another master-mind pathogens are Herpes viruses, Cytomegalie viruses...
What I find funny in this story of syphilis treatment is that syphilis lost its virulence by itself, with time.
It killed at first, of course, but with the history, it lost its virulence by itself.
Like all infections, the plague, for example.
They did kill, BUT the ones who survived sort of had their immune system trained to fight it on their own.
It seems clear to me that that is what happened to syphilis, before the advent of antibiotics.
When drugs came, they killed the pathogens 'for good' (8 days penicillin sounds incredible)...
It possibly did not kill all pathogens, of course, despite what MDs might have thought or measured in patients' blood....
...but I suppose pathogens simply mutated, and started hiding = slow rise of symptoms....
....until all these infections we fought so successfully in the past started going more and more deep, more and more chronic.
Like lyme. Candida. Herpes. Cyto. Parasites...
No chronic infection TODAY is killed by 8 days of penicillin. Not even in dream.
It's very interesting to see how SLOW was the development of treatment for syphilis.
And how the problem, in fact, was never solved. 8 days of penicillin was the highest point, in the review.
Chronic syphillis treatment is not even mentioned.
---------------------- What are emotional dynamics MP3 meditation tones?
CAn we buy it to test?
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