The student's manual of venereal diseases : being a concise description of those affections and of their treatment / by Berkeley Hill and Arthur Cooper.

  • Hill, Berkeley, 1834-1892.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The student's manual of venereal diseases : being a concise description of those affections and of their treatment / by Berkeley Hill and Arthur Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Modes of Contagion.—Syphilis may be propa- gated by (1) direct contact; by (2) mediate com- munication ; or by (3) hereditary transmission. 1. Direct Contact,—Syphilis is most commonly communicated during coitus; but it is not neces- sarily a venereal disease, for it is sometimes conveyed by kissing, by suclding, by examining diseased xoer- sons, as in the case of doctors, students and mid- wives, and in various other ways. 2. Mediate Communication,—More rarely syphihs is conveyed through the medium of drinking vessels, spoons, pipes, towels, or other articles that have been used by syphilitic persons. Dentists' and surgeons' instruments have also acted as media of contagion— as, for instance, in vaccination. 3. Hereditary Transmission,—Our knowledge is im- perfect respecting the ways in which syphihs may be transmitted from parent to child. Tliere is no doubt that if the mother be infected shortly before or at conception, the child will almost always receive the disease. The child will probably contract the dis- ease if the mother be infected in the early months of pregnancy. If she is infected after the seventh month the child often escapes. As the disease sub- sides in the mother, the chances of escape for the child greatly increase, and after the second or third year of the mother's infection the child is often healthy. It is believed by many that the child may inherit the disease from the father, and may in turn infect the mother through the placental circulation, or in