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Infection of the Innocents
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Infection of the Innocents

Wet Nurses, Infants, and Syphilis in France, 1780-1900
By Joan Sherwood
History: Europe: France
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9780773580916

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A study of the attempts to cure infants of syphilis and the wet nurses who were harmed.


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.

Infection of the Innocents describes the pioneering experiments at the Vaugirard in the 1780s and tells the stories of healthy women who contracted syphilis by nursing infants in the nineteenth century. It explores the legal cases that wet nurses brought against the doctors and families whose secrecy about the infant's health had exposed them to the debilitating disease. One of the key findings is that some women actually won damage suits against doctors and families, leading to reform of the law governing doctor-patient confidentiality.
Details

Part of the McGill-Queen's/Associated Medical Services Studies in the History of Medicine, Health, and Society (number 37 in series)

232 Pages, 6 x 9

10 photos

ISBN 9780773537415

September 2010

Formats: Cloth, eBook

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"Sherwood compellingly investigates the social and ethical implications of this medical innovation, and describes in thrilling detail the legal consequences for families and doctors when infected wet-nurses sued for damages." Merilyn Simonds, The Kingston Whig Standard
"Sherwood's book gives us an important and engrossing analysis of the legal, ethical, and institutional dimensions surrounding wet nurses and the treatment of syphilitic children. She convincingly demonstrates that disadvantaged women used the law to shift medico-legal practice and professional ethics. The book is invaluable reading for scholars working on the history of public health and welfare institutions, as well as the social history of women and the family in modern France." H-France
"Sherwood's book offers a fascinating window into a largely unexamined corner of modern French medical and legal history. Her interest in exploring the fates of both the unfortunate infants and their exploited - and sometimes defiant - midwives should be of interest to scholars in both fields." Canadian Bulletin of Medical History
Joan Sherwood is a retired professor who taught in the Department of History at Queen's University.




Infection of the Innocents
Joan Sherwood

Table of Contents

Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Introduction 3

1 Mercury and Syphilis: A Dysfunctional Relationship 12
2 The Making of a Modern Hospital in Eighteenth-Century Paris 24
3 The Infants of Vaugirard 44
4 The Wet Nurse as Technology 75
5 The Wet Nurse and the Law 114
6 The Doctor Exonerated 147

APPENDICES
1 Case Sources 165
2 Decision of the Court of Dijon, 14 May 1868 173
3 General Legislative and Statutory Terms 176

Abbreviations Used in Notes 178
Notes 179
Index 208

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