"Syphilidemque ab eo labem dixere coloni."Buret traces the origin of the word syphilis from sun, with, and filia, love, the companion of love; which means in plain language that the pox is a disease transmitted more especially by venereal relations. The first great epidemic of syphilis occurred between 1493 and 1496, and attacked all ranks, neither the Church nor the Crown being spared. The ravages of this disease were increased by the treatment with mercury which soon afterward was found in proper doses to be a specific in this disease. It is possible that the terrible manifestations of syphilis of which we read in the older writers were in a great measure due to the enormous doses of mercury. At the present day syphilis is universally prevalent. In his excellent monograph Sturgis estimated in New York, in 1873, that one out of 18 suffered from it; and White of Philadelphia pronounces the opinion that "not less than 50,000people in that city are affected with syphilis." According to Rohe, on this basis Gihon estimates the number of syphilitics in the United States at one time as 2,000,000.
To-day no disease, except possibly tuberculosis, is a greater agency in augmenting the general mortality and furthering sickness than syphilis. Its hereditary features, the numerous ways in which it may be communicated outside of the performance of the sexual act, and the careful way in which it is kept from the sanitary authorities render it a scourge which, at the present day, we seem to have no method of successfully repressing.
Modern Mortality from Infectious Diseases.--As to the direct influence on the mortality of the most common infectious diseases of the present day, tuberculosis, universally prevalent, is invariably in the lead. No race or geographic situation is exempt from it. Osler mentions that in the Blood Indian Reserve of the Canadian Northwest Territories, during six years, among a population of about 2000 there were 127 deaths from pulmonary consumption. This enormous death-rate, it is to be remembered, occurred in a tribe occupying one of the finest climates of the world, among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, a region in which consumption is extremely rare among the white population, and in which cases of tuberculosis from the Eastern provinces do remarkably well. Mayo-Smith quotes a table illustrating the annual deaths (based on the returns from 1887 to 1891) from certain infectious diseases per 10,000 European inhabitants. The figures for each disease give a rough measure of its prevalence in different countries. The large figures as to small-pox show the absence in Italy and "Hieronymi Fracastorii," Veronae, 1530.
Statistics and Sociology, New York, 1885.
Austria of vaccination; diphtheria seems to be very fatal in Germany and Austria; Italy has a large rate for typhoid fever, and the same is true of the other fevers; France, Germany, and Austria show a very large rate for tuberculosis, while Italy has a small rate.
DEATHS FROM CERTAIN DISEASES PER 10,000 INHABITANTS.
Small- Scarlet Diphtheria Typhoid Tuber-COUNTRY. pox. Measles. feverfever. culosis Italy, . . . . . 3.86 6.172.99 6.08 7.4913.61France (cities). 2.35.183.1 6.66 5.3233.
England, . . . . 0.11 4.682.31 1.74 1.9 16.09Ireland, . . . . 0.01 2.011.22 0.76 2.3321.15Germany (cities). 0.04 2.8 2.1510.21 2.1131.29Prussia, . . . . 0.03 3.2 2.4614.17 2.2628.06Austria, . . . . 4.43 5.365.5713.2 5.4237.2Switzerland, . . 0.06 1.531.22 3.53 1.4721.07Belgium, . . . . 1.52 6.2 1.62 5.77 3.8319.87Holland, . . . . 0.02 3.930.38 1.45 2.5 19.21Sweden, . . . . . 0.01 2.3 3.69 3.89 2.22 0.
Based upon the Tenth Census Reports, we figure that of every 10,000 inhabitants of the United States the number of deaths for the census year from similar diseases was as follows:--Rural. Cities.
Measles, . . . . . . . 1.62 1.54
Scarlet Fever, . . . . 2.84 5.54
Diphtheria, . . . . . 7.53 8.
Croup, . . . . . . . . 3.51 4.08
Typhoid Fever, . . . . 4.75 3.46
Tuberculosis, . . . . 16.29 28.55
The general average of deaths from small-pox was about 0.14.
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