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Rapport fait par Toussaint Louverture, Général en Chef de l'Armée de Saint-Domingue, au Directoire exécutif.

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Pablo Petit, Breve tratado de la enfermedad venerea, o morbo galico. Lima, 1730.


 

It was long believed that syphilis was a New World disease. Galenic medicine held that the cure to a sickness would be found close to its origin, thus one of the first treatments for syphilis was guayacum, a flowering plant native to the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the Americas. As early as 1496, however, mercury was tried as a cure, with moderate success, applied either topically or even ingested. In this work, French physician Pablo Petit discusses syphilis’s history and known treatments. He is critical of folk cures which he claimed, far from curing syphilis, actually spread it more widely. Petit advocated mercury, and in 1746 the Gazeta de Lima advertized that his cure could be sent through the mail.