Artifact #5
Syphilis is seen, stereotypically to be spread by woman to man. And because of this, early depictions or posters, warning of the dangers of syphilis, show a woman, or feminine symbols telling males to be careful. That a beautiful woman might have the nasty disease. One of the nicknames for syphilis is the “The Great Imitator,” because the symptoms of the disease were symptoms for many other ailments. This is one of the reasons why it showed the woman looking healthy, because they may carry the disease without showing any signs of it, and if they do show signs, they could be mild, and you may not know. While it was thought that if a guy had the disease, the signs would be prevalent. Congenital syphilis can also happen though, and another reason why women were thought to be the blame for the spread. For if a woman has the untreated disease and becomes pregnant, the child could also contract syphilis. This is caused numerous deformities, such as hearing and vision problems, anemia, and paralyzed limbs to name a few. Before syphilis was the term commonly used by everyone, countries which were not on friendly terms with other nations, would name the disease after that nation. Such as Russia naming it the “Polish disease” or Italy naming it the “French disease” when French soldiers besieging the town of Naples, Italy contracted the disease. It was thought that the sailors and travelers from the other nations would come into town and get the disease from the prostitutes in that town. This would have probably caused xenophobia of the opposing nations, making the citizens see that other country’s people being unclean and unwanted. In the Tuskegee Syphilis study, the experiment was first brought up, because people thought the black men could not contract the disease, and when researchers found out that they in fact could, they pushed to get the experiment to be extended from its original eight-month trial. This experiment also went against Nuremberg Code of ethics, which was made after what the world uncovered what the Nazis had been doing during the war to their prisoners of war. These men were also never told that they were being injected with syphilis and were told that they had “bad blood” and these doctors from the government had come down to treat them. At no point were they given any sort of treatment or go to another clinic to get test or treated. The people conducting the experiment also were able to get these men prevented from being drafted. Because if they did get drafted, then they would have gotten treated for the disease. As part of the experiment, a painful spinal tap without any sort of numbing medication was done on the men. From the experiment, 28 men died due to having the disease. 40 of the men’s wives also contracted syphilis and 19 of the children born during the time of the experiment, were born with congenital syphilis. Because of this experiment, emotional and physical pain was inflicted on the men. The experimenters, sent to the men, when the men were thinking about backing out or stopping, a letter titled “Last Chance for a Special Free Treatment.” Like most men, especially those in a poor rural town in Alabama, trusted the government, and allowed the doctors to do whatever, in hopes that they would be cured of their bad blood. The study ended in 1972, but because of the study, many long-term effects came because of this. There became a general distrust in the government and health care officials, mainly in black men, where a survey in 1999 showed that 32% of black women did not trust healthcare officials, compared to 4% in white women. Even though 80% of women thought that going to a healthcare professional benefited them. In the end, there was much more that was lost to the experiment than any knowledge could have ever been gained form the experiment.
Works Cited
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis
https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/congenital-syphilis.aspx#
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
https://daily.jstor.org/the-lasting-fallout-of-the-tuskegee-syphilis-study/