The Third Great Plague: A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday PeopleStokes, John H. (John Hinchman)
History
The Third Great Plague: A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People
Stokes, John H. (John Hinchman)
Syphilis
+Treatment of the Mother.+--For the mother, then, syphilis may mean all
the disappointments of a thwarted and defeated maternity, and the
horrors of bearing diseased and malformed children. She is herself
subject to the risk of death from blood poisoning which may follow
abortion. But here, as in all syphilis, early recognition and thorough
treatment of the disease may totally transform the situation. In the old
days of giving mercury by mouth and without salvarsan, there was little
hope of doing anything for the children during the active infectious
period in the mother. Now we are realizing that even while the child is
in the womb the vigorous treatment of the mother may save the day for
it, and bring it into the world with a fair chance for useful and
efficient life. More especially is this true when the mother has been
infected while carrying the child, or just before or as conception
occurred. In these cases, salvarsan and mercury, carefully given, seem
not only not harmful to mother and child, but may entirely prevent the
child's getting the disease. For this reason every maternity hospital or
ward should be in a position to make good Wassermann blood tests,
conduct expert examinations, and give thorough treatment to women who
are found to have syphilis. There does not seem to be any good reason
why a Wassermann test should not be made part of the examination which
every intelligent mother expects a physician to make at the beginning
of her pregnancy. Such a test would bring to light some otherwise
undiscovered syphilis, and protect the lives of numbers of mothers and
children whose health and happiness, not to say life, are now sacrificed
to blind ignorance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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