Hanley, Anne (2017) Syphilization and its discontents: experimental inoculation against Syphilis at the London Lock Hospital. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 91 (1), pp. 1-32. ISSN 0007-5140.
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Abstract
In 1867 James Lane and George Gascoyen, surgeons to the London Lock Hospital, compiled a report on their experiments with a new and controversial treatment. The procedure, known as “syphilization,” saw patients be inoculated with infective matter taken from a primary syphilitic ulcer or the artificial sores produced in another patient. Each patient received between 102 and 468 inoculations to determine whether syphilization could cure syphilis and produce immunity against reinfection. This article examines the theory and practice of this experimental treatment. Conducted against the backdrop of the Contagious Diseases Acts, the English syphilization experiments have been largely forgotten. Yet they constitute an important case study of how doctors thought about the etiology and pathology of syphilis, as well as their responsibilities to their patients, at a crucial moment before the advent of the bacteriological revolution.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Copyright © 2017 The Johns Hopkins University Press |
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | syphilis, human experimentation, inoculation, disease immunity, medical ethics |
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies |
| Depositing User: | Anne Hanley |
| Date Deposited: | 18 Dec 2017 09:08 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:37 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/20641 |
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