Excerpt from On the Stages and Forms of Syphilis: With More Especial Reference to the Hepatic Manifestations of the Disease

With syphilis it is quite another thing. From Ricord onwards a primary, secondary, and tertiary stage have been clearly distinguished, and not only this, but according as to whether the disease is acquired in post-natal life, or has seized upon the individual while in the mother's womb, so do we recognise two different types of the disease.

There is, I take it, no more firmly 'fixed idea' in the whole of medicine than that of the absolute existence of these different stages and forms of syphilis. To-day, I do not want to pose as a revolution ist and an iconoclast, for speaking broadly, and regarding the bulk of the evidence before us, I, like all others. Must acknowledge the utility of the divisions. But there is a danger in these fixed ideas, in medicine as in all sublunary affairs, and, to say the least, it is of benefit occasionally to enquire whether what is accepted of all men is so absolutely and entirely fixed and assured as we are accustomed to regard it.

What I am about to say is not novel. The unity of syphilitic lesions has been preached for now more than thirty years in fact, ever since Wagner pointed out that all such lesions might be referred to the developments of a specific neoplasm. Perhaps Wagner went too far, for there are generalised fibroid conditions, which, as I shall have to point out in connection with the liver, are not directly due to the development of circumscribed neoplasms; but it must be acknow ledged that neoplasms or infective granulomata are to be recognised in each stage and form of the disease. Nevertheless, the idea of the sharp demarcation of the different forms and stages of the disease seems to be as firmly planted to-day as it was prior to 1864, and the admirable protest of Nevins Hydel and the writings of others do not seem as yet to have influenced the profession in general.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.