Syphilis / by Sir Jonathan Hutchinson.

  • Hutchinson, Jonathan, Sir, 1828-1913
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Syphilis / by Sir Jonathan Hutchinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    52/718 (page 22)
    On the lips, from kissing, the use of drinking-vessels, pipes, etc., they are not uncommon. The midwifery chancre on the finger is a form from which medical men suffer most severely, and it assumes great addi- tional importance from the risk there is of conveying it to their patients. Chancres on the nipple were formerly not very infrequent. Amongst the more in- frequent positions, I may mention that I have seen primary sores in the middle of the sole of the foot and the palm of the hand, on the scalp and face, on the ear, on the nose, and on the skin of the chin at some distance from the lip. I have seen them on the tongue, on the tonsil, and on the conjunctiva of the eyeball. All these positions and many others are men- tioned by other observers. Even in cases in which chancres are met with on the genitals they are not always consequent on coitus. In children they may be accidental (from towels, etc.), and in adults the stories which we so often hear as to infection at water-closets, etc., are, I doubt not, in exceptional cases, really true. In several instances epidemics of syphilis amongst lying-in women, and subsequently their husbands, have occurred from inocu- lation of the genitals by the finger of the accoucheur during labour. Mciiioi'niida as to primary sores.—The follow- ing memoranda on this subject may be offered :— So-called soft, or non-infecting, sores are almost never observed except on the genitals. It is difficult to assign a satisfactory reason for this. It may be that they seldom develop their peculiar features ex- cept on the genitals, and are thus not recognised when seen on other parts. Non-vcnereal chancres, like those from coitus, are usually single. In some cases, however, they may be multiple. Thus I have in policemen, in two instances, seen several present together as the result of injuries received in scuffles with infected men. In another case, a sailor who had fought with a diseased comrade, and been bitten in many places, had six or eight indurated chancres on his fingers, forearm, one ear, and chin.