BOOKS BY CATEGORY
Your Account
Infection of the Innocents
Wet Nurses, Infants, and Syphilis in France, 1780-1900
Price
Quantity
€89.60
(To see other currencies, click on price)
Hardback
Add to basket  

MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Main description:

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.


PRODUCT DETAILS

ISBN-13: 9780773537415
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Publication date: September, 2010
Pages: 232
Weight: 652g
Availability: Available
Subcategories: General Issues, Infectious Diseases, Public Health

CUSTOMER REVIEWS

Average Rating