Abstract
Taking into consideration the medical publications on venereal and non-venereal syphilis in the second part of the nineteenth century in Britain and in the United States, I argue that the post-1850s insistence on an ‘innocent’ spread of the disease betrays larger fears fuelled by transformations brought about by modernity. In the context of new production and consumption modes, in which syphilis became divorced from the sexual act and extended over (intimate) relations, any sort of exchange became pathologized and served to outline the perils of modernity. Together with medical maps of syphilis, these debates articulated the necessity of replacing the grand-scale isolationist projects with nuanced exercises in civic responsibility as the chief means in syphilis control.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Preventive Hygiene. An account of the Brussels international conferences 1899 and 1902 notes that, at the first International Conference on Prophylaxis of Syphilis and Venereal Diseases in Brussels (1899), Jonathan Hutchinson presented evidence that syphilis was “steadily diminishing” (1912, 17).
- 3.
Iwan Bloch, who offered a historical taxonomy of syphilis, famously argues in his 1914 paper “The History of Syphilis” that “[e]ach nation […] named syphilis after the nation or country from which it first received the disease, e.g. – the Indians and Japanese called it the Portuguese; the Russians called it the Polish disease; the Turks, the Frank disease” (1914, 18). See also Pietrzak-Franger 2017, 30–32.
- 4.
It is important to note that out of his 2000 cases, it is 113 that he can with certainty classify as extra-genital, which again gives credence to the small prevalence of syphilis sinucoitu (1894, 36). According to him, they constitute around 5.5 per cent of the entire sum of syphilis insontium he could observe over the 20 years of his work as a practitioner (1894, 35).
- 5.
There are no clear temporal outlines given, but the sources Bulkley surveyed encompass the period from the early nineteenth century—Mosley, Chelsea, “A Treatise on the Lues Bovilla,” 1805—to the end of it, when the publications increased considerably (1894, 335).
- 6.
For details on the history of Poland and its partitions, see Norman Davies 1981, vol. II.
- 7.
Like Cooper, he also envisions prostitution, wars, migration, pilgrimages and commercial trade as offering further dangerous spaces of exchange (Bulkley 1894, 4).
- 8.
- 9.
Syphilis separates [...] it also creates bonds, compassion. If it constitutes an obstacle for Pierre and Berthe’s love, it is no less the catalyst of their union. [...] To experience syphilis [and love] together, means to accept life in its ambivalence and in its fullness.
- 10.
For a detailed comparison of French, British and German preoccupations with syphilis, see Schonlau 2005.
- 11.
For a summary of literature on the subject, see Bulkley (1894), 219.
- 12.
The description of the congress, its goals and debates are primarily based on Preventive Hygiene. An account of the Brussels international conferences 1899 and 1902, 1912. The pages in brackets reference the pages in this anonymous report.
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Pietrzak-Franger, M. (2018). Medical Mappings of Syphilis in the Late Nineteenth Century. In: Nixon, K., Servitje, L. (eds) Syphilis and Subjectivity . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66367-8_2
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