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Infection of the innocents : wet nurses, infants, and syphilis in France, 1780-1900 /
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries congenital syphilis was a major cause of infant mortality in France but mercury, the preferred treatment for the disease, could not be safely given to infants. In the 1780s the Vaugirard hospital in Paris began to treat affected infants by giving mercury to...
| Clasificación: | Libro Electrónico |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Electrónico eBook |
| Idioma: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Montreal :
McGill-Queen's University Press,
©2010.
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| Colección: | McGill-Queen's/Associated Medical Services studies in the history of medicine, health, and society ;
37. |
| Temas: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Texto completo |
| Sumario: | In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries congenital syphilis was a major cause of infant mortality in France but mercury, the preferred treatment for the disease, could not be safely given to infants. In the 1780s the Vaugirard hospital in Paris began to treat affected infants by giving mercury to wet nurses, who transmitted it to infants through their milk. Despite the highly contagious nature of syphilis and the dangerous side-effects of mercury, the practice of using healthy wet nurses to treat syphilitic infants spread throughout France and continued into the nineteenth century. |
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| Descripción Física: | 1 online resource (xiii, 214 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliografía: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-207) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780773580916 0773580913 |