Infection of the Innocents : wet nurses, infants, and syphilis in France, 1780-1900 / Joan Sherwood.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sherwood, Joan, 1929-

Series:

McGill-Queen's/Associated Medical Services studies in the history of medicine, health, and society ; 37.

McGill-Queen's/Associated Medical Services studies in the history of medicine, health, and society ; 37

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hospice de Vaugirard (Paris, France)--History.

Hospice de Vaugirard (Paris, France).

Syphilis, Congenital, hereditary, and infantile--Treatment--Social aspects--France--History.

Syphilis, Congenital, hereditary, and infantile.

Syphilis--Patients--Legal status, laws, etc--France--History.

Syphilis.

Wet nurses--Legal status, laws, etc--France--History.

Wet nurses.

Medical personnel--Malpractice--France--History.

Medical personnel.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (229 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; Ithaca [N.Y.] : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Mercury and syphilis : a dysfunctional relationship

The making of a modern hospital in eighteenth-century Paris

The infants of Vaugirard

The wet nurse as technology

The wet nurse and the law

The Doctor exonerated

Appendices. Case sources ; Decision of the Court of Dijon, 14 May 1868 ; General legislative and statutory terms.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-283-53022-8

9786613842671

0-7735-8091-3

OCLC:

767671391