The History of Malariotherapy for Neurosyphilis
Modern Parallels
- Stephanie C. Austin;
- Paul D. Stolley, MD, MPH;
- Tamar Lasky, PhD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
THE ACQUIRED immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic and the attempt to deregulate drug approval with the goal of hastening a cure have parallels with another sexually transmitted disease and the search for its cure. Syphilis and one of its dread consequences, neurosyphilis, was a disease that consumed much public health concern, and whose putative "cure," malariotherapy, earned the 1927 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the Austrian psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg. In reviewing the history of syphilis, the true benefits of malariotherapy are unknown because of the research methods used at the time. Was malariotherapy efficacious? This historical question is relevant to the present debate over drug regulations and AIDS, because abandonment of drug evaluation protocols could return us to the methodologic environment of Wagner-Jauregg's day. It seems worthwhile to review the similarities and differences between the two diseases, social climates, and searches for cures.
In Europe and the United States at the
Footnotes
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Reprint requests to Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 600 Redwood St, Baltimore, MD 21201 (Dr Stolley).
