
Give the Gift of Choice!
Too many options? Treat your friends and family to their favourite stores with a Bayshore Shopping Centre gift card, redeemable at participating retailers throughout the centre. Click below to purchase yours today!Purchase HereHome
Infection of the Innocents: Wet Nurses, Infants, and Syphilis in France, 1780-1900
Coles
Loading Inventory...
Infection of the Innocents: Wet Nurses, Infants, and Syphilis in France, 1780-1900 in Ottawa, ON
By None
Current price: $100.00


By None
Infection of the Innocents: Wet Nurses, Infants, and Syphilis in France, 1780-1900 in Ottawa, ON
Current price: $100.00
Loading Inventory...
Size: Hardcover
*Product information may vary - to confirm product availability, pricing, shipping and return information please contact Coles
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.
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.

















