History of treatments
There were originally no effective treatments for syphilis. The Spanish priest
Francisco Delicado wrote
El modo de adoperare el legno de India (Rome, 1525) about the use of
Guaiacum in the treatment of syphilis. He himself suffered from syphilis. Another common remedy was
mercury: the use of which gave rise to the saying "A night in the arms of
Venus leads to a lifetime on
Mercury".
[25] It was administered multiple ways including by mouth and by rubbing it on the skin. One of the more curious methods was fumigation, in which the patient was placed in a closed box with his head sticking out. Mercury was placed in the box and a fire was started under the box which caused the mercury to vaporize. It was a grueling process for the patient and the least effective for delivering mercury to the body.
As the disease became better understood, more effective treatments were found. The first antibiotic to be used for treating disease was the
arsenic-containing drug
Salvarsan, developed in 1908 by
Sahachiro Hata while working in the laboratory of
Nobel prize winner
Paul Ehrlich. This was later modified into
Neosalvarsan. Unfortunately, these drugs were not 100% effective, especially in late disease. It had been observed that some who develop high fevers could be cured of syphilis. Thus, for a brief time
malaria was used as treatment for tertiary syphilis because it produced prolonged and high fevers. This was considered an acceptable risk because the malaria could later be treated with
quinine which was available at that time. This discovery was championed by
Julius Wagner-Jauregg, who won the 1927
Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work in this area. Malaria as a treatment for syphilis was usually reserved for late disease, especially neurosyphilis, and then followed by either Salvarsan or Neosalvarsan as adjuvant therapy. These treatments were finally rendered obsolete by the discovery of
penicillin, and its widespread
manufacture after
World War II allowed syphilis to be effectively and reliably cured.
[26]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphili..._of_treatments