The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-12

| sometimes raging with fury in it's destruc- tive course, ofttimes sumbering dormant | in the blood of it's victims, but always | ready to become active whenever It's vic l tims are made more vulnerable to its en- ergies by reason of other acquired illness | or facilitating influences such as cause | weakness and lessen the physical powers or resistance. Coming down to us from the remote ages, uninfluenced by season or climate, no respecter of class, caste or oolor, ever prevalent in all countries and in all nations, it may well be termed the universal malady as well as the most malignan. enemy of mankind. No one l can say truly that he Is immune to its attack or that he is even now free from 1 the bane, for it may be contracted from | whatever is touched that may have been 1 handled by others. I have known it's transmission through kiss, by the use of Toomniates pipe, from a drinking cup, 1 from towel. from smoking a cigar made 1 by one infected with the disease I have treated six cases that were inoculated while being shaved in a barber's chair, and one of Birminghams most beautiful and pure young ladies was inoculated by having thorn removed from her finger with penknife of young gentleman friend. and hundreds of my patients could l not tell me. the source of their inocuia- tion. Though1 usually transmitted direct from parents to offspring. it does in many instances skip from one to three genera tions before manifesting it's presence, though no doubt dormant in all the con genital line back to the first source of | infection. Hence in America, where our race is made up of a mixture of the blood | of well nigh every race on earth am constantly fpding evidences of the mal- distemper in the persons of men, women and children in whom no suspicion of im- morality should ever cast shadow upon the character of the unfortunates, and it IS the consensus of opinion of many of the most renowned syphilogists that the infection in some degree of active or latent form is already now corrupting the blood of more than half of the white people of the world, and it is my personal opinion that not less than 90 per cent of the ne- groes in the south are affected with it's poison. and it is conceded by all who l by study and observation are conversant with the matter that the miserable. nor | bid affection is ever increasing in it's spread and widening the circle of it's baneful influence.
 l Rocking with poison in their blood before their advent into the world, thousands of children are yearly born with undeveloped, rickety frames, dis torted forms dwarfed in size, blind and imbecile, and with ma lignant skin eruptions. Many come still-born. Others only to struggle awhile with life for short time and then die, or if continuing in life to go through the world poor, degraded moral and physical spawns. contaminating those with whom they come in contact, a curse to themselves and the land wherein they exist. Untold millions of graves have been filled with the vic tims of this awful disease and count less thousands are yet every day being treated for what they may think is Scrofula, Eczema, Rheumatism, Arthri- | tis, etc, which in truth is in many in- stances but the manifestations of con Itracted or inherited Specific Blood Poison. And, as matter of fact. it is well known that the disease does cause Paraylsis, Locomotor-a ata xia, Ep- ilepsy, Insanity Palsy and many other Neurotic affections. as well as causing arterial thrombus, Necrosis of the Bones, Deafness, Distorted Vision, Badness and many other affections which directly affect the usefulness happiness and personal appearance of | its victims, as well as through the weakening of their minds and lower ing of their vitality, renders them more vulnerable to the attacks of other dis eases, and thus hurrying them prema 1 .urely into their graves. This is a true but brief indictment of the horrible malady which Salvarsan has now come to conquer and to eradicate from the civilized world, and which I hope is to save mankind from what appar- ently must otherwise have been the ul- innate destruction of the human race More than two thousand years ago the Chinese treated those affected with Specific Blood Poison with hot water baths, mercury, and ashes of burnt sea weed (the equivalent of iodide of potssh), and there has been no radical change or improvement in their treat lment until the advent of Ehrlich's thrice
 
 upon thousands of experimental agen- cies have been used with but little or no benefit to the patients. However 1t has been possible in the past, with veg etable alternatives, mercury, iodde of potash and hot baths to effect some
 cures. though it usually required
 months or years of unremitting treat
 ment to do so. As a matter of fact, but
 a small percentage of such patients , could ever be induced to continue the
 treatment long enough to make a cure
 complete and permanent. The greater
 number of patients would quit taking
 treatment too soon, and though the
 symptoms may have all disappeared
 and the victims lulled into a hopeful
 trust that they were entirely cured. too often was 1t true that the malady had been only temporarily subdued and
 made dormant and the lurking germs. like latent sparks of fire left in the smoldering ruins of partly consumed building, would rekindle and manifest their presence again when least ex- pected, and it Is in this latent form of the disease that the greatest danger turks. not alone to the subject him self, but to the many who may become
 victims to his unguarded spread of the infection.
 Such then is sufficient cause for it's con-
 temptation with dismay. Yes, thousands Il are unsuspectingly contaminated withou, | tt,v l, ma