Syphilis has been a part of human history for several millennia, and it became the first time in the antiquity of the Greek doctor Hippocrates (460 BC – 370 BC). He described syphilis in the tertiary form, as the last stage of the disease. There have also been other memories of the disease in recent times by a Augustiner monk who lived in 1300-1400 in Kingston upon Hull, England. This was one is a port city with high throughput of ships and travelers, and it is believed that this city has had an important role in the spread of syphilis between countries and continents. Some historians, on the other hand, believe that syphilis first took part in the French forces that surrounded Naples completely on the tortoise of the fourteenth century, and the Italians therefore called the disease of the French sickness – unlike the French who called syphilis for the napoleon.
Syfilis’s History – “The Social Illness”
Syphilis along with Gonore was a feared disease that could affect all social layers and circuits. There are many famous and historical persons who have been infected with syphilis throughout the ages, such as German philosopher Friedrich Nietche, composer Bethooven and the warlord Napoleon. One of the first attempts to fight these two was to kill prostitution because this important cause of syphilis could spread so quickly through society.
Syphilis and important discoveries
In 1906, for the first time, there was a laboratory method for diagnosing the disease on the basis of which was based on the precipitation of antigen-antibody complexes. It was called for the Wassermann test, and was a major breakthrough, although it was not entirely reliable because it often had a false positive result.
It was only in 1913 that there was a safe way to diagnose syphilis when a Japanese scientist was able to detect the spiro chain Treponema pallidium in the brain of a patient with tertiary syphilis, who had developed into neuropathy with progressive paralysis. Syphilis bacteria is not possible with normal light microscopy, and you must use a special method called “dark field microscopy” to visualize it. This breakthrough proved that the researchers had long suspected that syphilis had a microbiological cause. The breakthrough helped to reduce the number of misdiagnoses and malpractice considerably, as psychoses, dementia and other mental disorders were often caused by syphilis.
This test was followed by the Hinton test, which was developed in the 30’s. This test was more reliable and showed less positive results than the wassermann test. Both of these tests have now been replaced by modern and effective methods, such as fastest for syphilis.
Between 1932 and 1972, a study was conducted on black men with untreated syphilis, where approximately 400 poor African-American men (mostly illiterate) were systematically investigated and refused treatment so that researchers could observe the natural progression of the disease, thus the disease develops without treatment. The unethical treatment of this group of patients was subsequently subject to major controversy and debate, resulting in new ethical guidelines for the completion of clinical studies.
Syphilis and treatment throughout the ages
Syfilis was considered impossible to process before and several remedies have been used. The Spanish pastor Fransisco Delicado described in 1525 that guaiacum (a type of resin) was used in the treatment of syphilis. Another well-used method was mercury, giving rise to the phrase “one night in the arms of Venus leads to a life of mercy” (From Roman times, the planet Mercury and Mercury have the same symbol while Venus was the Roman love goddess). The mercury was taken orally, intravenously or by rub it over the skin. Another method was to “cure” the infected person by putting them in a sealed box filled with mercury gas, just the head stuck out. It is actually references to mercury dating back to 1025, where it is described by the Persian doctor Ibn Sina. It is also known that Giorgio Sommariva used mercury against syphilis in 1496.
The first antibiotic to treat the syphilis content of arsenic and hot Salvarasan. This medicine was developed in 1908 by Sahachiro Hata while working in the lab of Nobel Prize winner Paul Ehrlich (known for chemotherapy discoveries). Salvarasan was later modified to Neosalvarasan, but none of the drugs was particularly effective in the tertiary phase of syphilis. All of these treatments were eventually phased out in the discovery of penicillin, and the extensive production of it during World War II.