Author: Alexandra Rusu
Before the 19th century, venereal diseases received very little attention from the authorities, especially concerning prevention. Among these diseases, syphilis was best known. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum. Its origin in Europe raised many questions. Several hypotheses have been issued: 1. Syphilis was brought from the New World. 2. Syphilis already existed in Europe at the time of the discovery of America. 3. The four forms (pinta, framboesia, endemic, and venereal syphilis) are a single disease that manifests itself in different geographical areas. 4. Syphilis was brought from Africa long before the end of the 15th century.
For the Romanian Countries, the historiography mentions the presence of the disease since the 16th century. It was called the “French disease” and, popularly, “perit”. Bucharest, located on the trade route between the Ottoman Empire and the West, was a meeting place for merchants but also one exposed to military occupations, which brought with them numerous soldiers and prostitutes who contributed to the spread of the disease. During the Phanariot rule, several foreign travelers who visited Moldova and Wallachia recorded that many “people suffer from syphilis” (Samarian, 1938, 383). Moreover, the clerical records from 1739 to 1850 show 15 complaints made by wives against their husbands, accusing them of having infected them with syphilis (Vintilă-Ghițulescu, 2011, 314-316). Defined by the jurists of the time as an excess (a violent act that could endanger the life or health of the spouse), infection with syphilis was considered a reason for divorce.
The archaeological excavations conducted in the University Square from 2010 to 2011 brought to light 676 graves that belonged to the cemetery of the church of St. Sava that dates back to the XVI-XIX centuries. Following a study carried out by researchers of the Francisc Rainer Institute, seven adults aged between 30 and 50 years (two indeterminate and five male) showed typical bone changes for syphilis infection (Radu et alii), 2015). Tertiary syphilis manifests itself on several bones and bilaterally: the tibia, the bones around the nasal cavity, and the skull, but also on the ulna, ribs, sternum, clavicles, or metacarpals; it is located on the whole bone or on a part in the form of changes that destroy or remodel the bone. Traces on the bones appear after a period of 1 to 20 years. In the present cases, it is venereal syphilis and not the congenital one, the one transmitted from mother to child.
From the Russian occupation of 1828 to 1834, we have the first medical research into “worldly diseases”- most likely syphilis. On July 12, 1828, a man called Nicolae Vieroșeanu from the district of Sf. Apostoli asked the Divan to be hospitalized because he suffers from “the disease of the world and being very poor, he has no means to look after himself.” The Divan commands that he be consulted by a doctor and hospitalized if the disease is proven. (Samaritan, 1932, 459)
Doctors knew that prostitution was the first source of syphilitic infection. Until the middle of the 19th century, the periodic medical supervision of prostitutes and hospitalization of the sick was required by law (Banu, 1944, 351). On February 25, 1832, the Agia proposed to the city’s Medical Commission: “the medical control of houses suspected of being infected with worldly diseases”. The proposal was denied because it implied visiting all the houses, a fact that could “defame honest people” (Samarian, 1938 , 398). In 1834, the medical commission of Bucharest decides that once a week: “the commissioner of each district should gather the public women in a certain place, and the district doctor with the midwife should visit them and send the sick ones to the hospital”. “Venereal diseases nestling” the authorities decide to “secretly” take a census of “public women” (1843) and subject them to a medical consultation (Felix, 1901, 128). The 227 women infected with venereal diseases were sent to Colțea and Pantelimon hospitals for treatment.
In 1847 venereal hospitals were officially established. Until 1853, the hospitals- called “county hospitals” in order not to discourage those affected by diseases considered shameful- were built in most counties. Legislation for the expansion of health facilities and the improvement of the medical service (Strengthened by royal decree with No. 552) of March 27, 1853 specified: “The hospitals established temporarily in the capital cities of the counties for syphilitic diseases will be kept permanent, both for the eradication of this fatal passion, which spread over all classes of people, even through the villages, as well as for the prevention of this evil, so that it does not come back, after once it is established, and then for the search for any other diseases that the inhabitants have passions for from around the counties, both from the villagers and from the townspeople.” (Bujoreanu, 1873, 583)
More and more policy makers were of the opinion that the health police, while it cannot eradicate syphilis, can limit it. In regulations and laws, prostitution was regarded as an unsanitary industry that, in order to continue to exist, must obey special rules prescribed by the competent authorities. The sanitary law of 1874 contains precise and general provisions regarding the fight against venereal diseases. It orders that in all the communes where there are doctors, prostitutes should undergo medical visits at least once a week and the sick ones should be hospitalized until they are cured. “Similarly, vagabond individuals of both sexes affected by venereal diseases will be admitted to hospitals until the disease is cured.” (Suta et alii, 2009, 65)
Although they benefited from free consultations, many sick people (not only prostitutes but also sick men and spouses) preferred to hide the disease out of embarrassment. They did not go to the doctor to receive treatment. Moreover, despite the prescription of the treatment, those affected by the disease abandoned it in a short time or did not follow it regularly. Patients did not receive free medication. Also, they were not hospitalized if they showed an advanced stage of the disease. The Colentina Hospital-“destined for the search of prostitutes”- was delaying their reception due to a lack of vacant beds, given that the commune paid the Eforia of civil hospitals 8,000 lei per year for this service (Report of the Bucharest commune administration, 1890, 152). Some were running away from the hospital because of the “unsufferable and degrading form of treatment”. “For weeks, the person suffering from syphilis was rubbed all over his body with mercury ointment, which resulted in the loss of teeth and other deficiencies caused to his health; the unfortunate victim of an adverse event therefore felt defiled not only mentally, but also physically, and even after such a terrible treatment the affected person lived the rest of his days with the fear that at any moment the treacherous virus could wake up again, coming out of its hiding place from the spinal cord and paralyzing the limbs, or from behind the forehead – and altering the functions of the brain.” (Vintila-Ghițulescu, 2015)
In 1889, of the 539 prostitutes who submitted to medical control in the capital city, 469 showed signs of venereal diseases. Syphilis compromised not only the health of the sick individual but also that of future generations. Of the 364 orphaned children cared for by the commune, 3 suffered from congenital syphilis. In the same year, additional measures appear on the agenda of the Public Hygiene and Sanitation Council: “the development of popular instructions or measures to prevent venereal infections, instructions intended for display in brothels, the regulation of additional health visits of prostitutes from the vicinity of the barracks and other houses of prostitution frequented by the military” (Report of the Bucharest commune administration, 1890, 114). Moreover, people wanted the establishment of the morality police because the small number of police officers did not allow the eradication of clandestine prostitution. (Report of the Bucharest commune administration, 1890, 129)
In the last decades of the 19th century, prostitution, through the venereal diseases it propagated among the population, appeared in the hygienic medical discourse concerned with the degeneration of the race. This “disease of the social body” had multiple causes, from the poor living conditions causing diseases to the lack of education or moral culture (Bărbulescu, 2015, 226). The statistics, which are more and more numerous, prove the increasing mortality throughout the country, especially among children under the age of ten. Doctors attribute the negative increase to morbid heredity. “Congenital debility […] arises from the constitution of the parents. This feeble constitution arises from alcoholism, malaria, pellagra, syphilis, tuberculosis, from bad living and lack of sufficient nutrition. All these manifest in children through a weakness and a small vital resistance to destructive causes, so the lightest harmful influences immediately kill them.” (Apostoleanu, 1902, 3) When the little ones survive, they pass this weakness on to future generations, weakening them. The impact is not limited to the physical level, as physical degeneration can cause moral degeneration and vice versa.
In 1880, doctor V. Manicea proposed rational marriage as a solution for the regeneration of the race: “for a rational marriage it would have been necessary to make a selection of spouses free of any physical or moral defect; but since perfection, as they say, does not exist on earth, the imperfection of the spouses must be so combined that is not increased but at least neutralized, in the next generation, by the mutual mating of the spouses. From the physiological point of view, marriage must oppose different temperaments by neutralizing the defects of both spouses.”(Manicea, 1880, 59-60)
A fine line separates the concern for the health of families from measures of negative eugenics, a fact exemplified by the proposals of doctors such as Dr. I. Toma Tomescu whom, in 1906, submitted to the legislative bodies a draft law for the sanitary regulation of marriages, motivating ” the bad consequences of the poor sanitary condition of the spouses on procreation”. (Ghițulescu, 2015)
Text: Alexandra Rusu
Photo: 1. Deformities of the ulna caused by venereal syphilis in the tertiary stage in a male individual aged approximately 30 years from the Bucharest Piața Universității cemetery.
- Frontal cranial lesions caused by venereal syphilis in the tertiary stage in a female individual from the Piața Universității cemetery in Bucharest.
The osteological material is exhibited in the first hall of The Museum of Ages.
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