“The sins of the fathers”: Congenital Syphilis

Abstract

Within a few years of the first outbreak of syphilis in Europe Gabriele Torella (fl. 1500) noted signs of syphilis in neonates, and in 1529 the German alchemist and physician Paracelsus (1493–1541) was the first to state “it is a hereditary illness, and passes from father to son”. After this came a period which was short on facts but long on unsupported assertions. To be sure, the natural history of syphilis in adults had not been defined, but in congenital syphilis there was an additional and confusing factor - the role of the wet nurse. There were case reports of infection of healthy nurses by syphilitic babies and of normal babies by syphilitic nurses, and there were descriptions of families in which successive children had developed the disease. For two centuries the origin of congenital syphilis was endlessly discussed, but the number of possible permutations and combinations of father, mother, infant and wet nurse meant that almost any conclusion could be drawn. One can sympathise with Diday (1812–1894) who, having waded through this literature, came across a remark by Guillaume Rondelet (1507–1566): “I have seen children born entirely marked with the pustules of the morbus gallicus”. Diday’s comment was: “A fact! Something precious for that period!”. Even such eminent syphilographers as Boerhaave, van Swieten and Jean Astruc, while they admitted the hereditary transmission of syphilis, had little of interest to say about it.

I never asked you for life. And what sort of life have you given me?

Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts