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No Magic Bullet In 1918, the Spanish influenza killed more people than died in combat in World War I. With advances in disease control and medicine, diphtheria, typhus, and tuberculosis are under control, but sexually transmitted diseases are out of control of epidemic proportions. Brandt asks why we have been unsuccessful in controlling these diseases. Perhaps disease and dirt are the precipitating cause of venereal disease, and the stigma attached to them keeps the problem hidden.
Brandt discusses the psychosocial aspect and cure for sexually transmitted diseases. Venereal disease reflects sexual attitudes and social values. Syphilis and gonorrhea had disastrous effects on the family unit and on the innocent victims. In 1837, Phillipe Ricord identified the three stages of syphilis by comparing chancre sores. Rudolph Virchow, one of the leading figures in germ theory, discovered that the infection could be spread through the blood to the internal organs.
Therefore, syphilis was a systemic disease. A social hygiene campaign was launched to clean up venereal disease. It was known for centuries that these diseases were spread through sexual conduct. Students at John Hopkins were instructed to know syphilis and all its manifestations and stages as well as a policy of concealment. Gonorrhea was thought a mild inflammatory disorder. Albert Never discovered the gonococcus bacteria that also caused meningitis, pericarditis, and peritonitis.
In 1890, one in ten marriages was sterile due to venereal disease. The effects of philandering on marriages, children, and mortality rate caused alarm. The deformities of infants born to diseased mothers infected by their husbands who may have had a latent infection when she got pregnant was definitely hard to cope with. By some accounts, the rate was as high as 35 % of marriages and families were afflicted, but divorce was not considered an option. Sex instruction, discipline, and restraint seemed the solution to the problem of epidemic proportion.
Brandt estimated that from 5 to 18 percent of all the men harbored syphilitic infections. From Victorian anxieties about syphilis to the current hysteria over herpes and AIDS, in his history of venereal disease in America, Brandt focuses on social attitudes as well as medical concerns. In No Magic Bullet, Allan M. Brandt documents medical, military, and public health responses to sexually transmitted diseases throughout history. In 1904, the effects of venereal disease on marriage were published to deter the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. No other diseases were so fatal to offspring.
Babies were born blind. Hysterectomies were a solution to stop the spread of the disease. Women suffered constant danger of venereal disease with their gender role to preserve the institution of marriage. World War I initiated premarital blood tests for venereal disease. Brandt discusses the relationship between medical science and cultural values in a chapter about AIDS. Analyzing this latest outbreak in the context of our previous attitudes toward, Brandt hopes to provide insights needed to guide policy formation to best combat sexually transmitted diseases.
Despite the incarceration of prostitutes and miracle drugs to cure infection, one hundred years later we still have no magic bullet or cure for sexually transmitted diseases. International conferences on venereal disease have been held since 1874, but stigma continues to impede policy changes to reduce the control of the infections. Despite advances in education, sanitation, and in medical care, human behavior as it pertains to venereal disease has not changed much during the last one hundred years. Brandt, A. (1987). No magic bullet: A social history of venereal disease in the United States since 1880. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
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Research essay sample on Sexually Transmitted Diseases One Hundred Years
