Yaws and syphilis

909

~'['ftANSACTIONSOF THE .~[OYALSOCIETY OF TROPICAL MEDICINE A N D HYGEINE. Vo[. 40. No. 6. July, 1947.

CORRESPONDENCE. YAWS

AND

SYPHILIS.

~Ib the Edito'f, TRANSaCTtONS of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. SIR, W i t h r e f e r e n c e to t h e d i s c u s s i o n o n Yaws a n d S y p h i l i s in t h e TRANSACTIONS (1946) 4 0 , 206, t h e f o l l o w i n g e x t r a c t f r o m ItAC,C~ARD'S Devils, Drugs and Doctors* m a y b e o f i n t e r e s t :--" One of the earliest records of tropical medicine was made by Gonsala Fernandez de Oviedo. He was raised among the pages in the palace of King Ferdinand and Quee~l Isabella [of Spain], and was at Barcelona in 1493 when Columbus returned from the island of Haiti. H e was intimately acquainted with most of the men who had made the voyage and many of them he knew were ill of a disease which they had contracted in America Twenty years after Columbus's voyage, Ferdinand sent Oviedo to America as superintendent over the gold and silver mines. After a residence of twelve years, Oviedo wrote a natural history of the Spanish possessions and dedicated it to Emperor Charles V. He describes a disease known as bubas, or yaws, which he says is a very ancient disease in those localities. Oviedo identifies bubas with syphilis, for, he says, bubas is ' n o other than the pocks (syphilis) which rageth and hath power over all Europe, especially among the Frenchmen . . . I can assure your Imperial Majesty that this disease which is new in Europe, is well known in the Antille islands lately discovered, and so very common there that almost everyone of the Spaniards who lay with the Indian women contracted it from them.' T h u s it was imported from thence into Spain by those who returned with Columbus after his first or second voyage." ~[ am~ etc.,

J. WALKER TOMB, Sydney, New South Wales * H^GC,AaV,

H.

W

pp. 236, 237.

THE

(t929)

Devils, O~-ug~ and Doc~t~.,'s New Yock ~[a~:~e~

AETiOLOGY

OF

DESERT

SORE.

SIR, As a f e l l o w amateu~ w i t h o n i y a v e r y b r u i t e d a c q u a i n t a n c e ¢¢ith statist~cai m e t h o d s , o n e f e l t s o m e h e s i t a t i o n in c r i t i c i z i n g L i e u t . - C o l . S, T . ANN~NO"S r e c e n t p a p e r in y o u r j o u r n a l (Trans. R. Soc. trop. Med. Hyg., ~A), 313). [qo,~ever, in t h e a b s e n c e o f m o r e e x p e r t i n t e r v e n t i o n , it is felt t h a t t h e statisticai t r e a t m e n t o f his m a t e r i a l c a n n o t b e a l l o w e d to pass w i t h o u t c o m m e n t I n t h e first place, his i n t r o d u c t i o n o f t h e i d e a o f p r o p o r t i o n s is h a ; d l ? a p p r o p r i a t e to t h e p a r t i c u l a r t y p e of e x p e r i m e n t , i t m u s t in a n y c a s e b e p o i n t e r