A history of syphilis : reprinted and enlarged from the original paper in the "Edinburgh Medical Journal" / by J.L. Milton, senior surgeon to St. John's Hospital for Diseases of the Skin.

  • Milton, J. L. (John Laws), 1820-1898
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of syphilis : reprinted and enlarged from the original paper in the "Edinburgh Medical Journal" / by J.L. Milton, senior surgeon to St. John's Hospital for Diseases of the Skin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    research, might here repose from the fatigue of examining facts and luxuriate in the contemplation of a branch of knowledge where matters are made so easy, that a theory is received without evidence and without opposition. Hensler contends that every man should be at full liberty to put forth his own hypothesis about the origin and nature of syphilis ; he speaks of it as a privilege which we have no more business to contest than we have to refuse him the right to call his house his own, or to sit under the shadow of his own fig-tree. We have gone beyond Hensler; for we extend this latitude not only to theories about syphilis, but, as the reader has just seen, to those about the derivatives of this disease. But whether such tolerance has been for good or for evil, whether in fact what is called science can afford to he tolerant, is quite another question. For it is to be remembered that we are dealing here, not with popular errors such as the astronomer and chemist can afford to overlook, but with tenets calculated, if erroneous, to carry the seeds of decay into the innermost recesses of syphilitic pathology. Sion House, King's Road, London, S. IV.