CN146 Walter Freeman
Added 2020-01-27 00:23:25 +0000 UTChttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II
Comments
Lol. I taught an undergrad class on research methodology and ethics. While I was researching the Tuskeegee study for background information, I learned more about the treatment of syphilis.
Stormy Decisis
2020-01-29 20:26:30 +0000 UTCIt sounds like you read more than one article about this... what are you an expert or something?
James F
2020-01-29 17:45:48 +0000 UTCI've never related to Eli as I much as I did in this episode.
Diana
2020-01-28 13:07:29 +0000 UTCFYI, the malaria thing was not entirely bonkers in the early 20th century. If syphilis progressed to its tertiary stage (which required you to be infected for decades - but since there was no cure at the time, getting it as a youth meant tertiary syphilis was common), it could infect the brain. The syphilis bacteria then ate tiny "holes" in the brain which caused changes in sensorimotor function, mood, cognition, and behavior. Tertiary syphilis was a major cause of what was then understood as "insanity". Before the invention of penicillin, malaria was actually a treatment for syphilis, admittedly not super-effective, but actually better than nothing. Malaria was pretty unlikely to directly kill a healthy adult, and it caused a high fever which sometimes killed syphilis. So deliberate infection with malaria was used as a way to get the body to fight off its syphilis infection. Now, once syphilis damages the brain, that damage can't be undone, but killing the bacteria prevents further damage. So, yeah, malaria was actually vaguely helpful. P.S. The Tuskeegee syphilis study would be an excellent episode. They started studying poor, uneducated black men in the American south who had syphilis at the time when malaria was the best treatment (bad, but not so bad) and continued until to the penicillin age without, you know, offering treatment (horrifying).
Stormy Decisis
2020-01-27 14:32:44 +0000 UTC
