SYPHILIS IN THE NEGRO.

Abstract

With the advent of his emancipation and his citizenship the negro earned his syphilis and bequeathed it (both by acquisition and heredity) to his posterity, to such a degree that he, in a great measure, became syphilized prior to his becoming civilized. Syphilis obtains in all of its forms in its most classic type in the negro by reason of his habits, his environments, his utter indifference to the disease and his carelessness and delay in having it treated. My experience, covering a period of more than six years in a large clinic composed almost entirely of negroes, justifies me in making the statement that 75 per cent. of that class of negroes who come as patients are syphilitic (either acquired or hereditary) . I could present you with a museum of Jonathan Hutchinson's teeth, bridge-shaped noses, rickets, and Parott's disease, showing the result of herditary syphilis in negro children.