Can you close your eyes without falling over? 
Hugh Pennington
- Pox: Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis by Deborah Hayden
Syphilis and the League of Nations have more in common than you might think. Both were dumped into the dustbin of history in the 1940s: syphilis by penicillin, the League of Nations by the Second World War. But the connection goes further than chronological coincidence. Before the war, the League took a deep and direct interest in syphilis, with its Health Organisation arranging conferences on the laboratory diagnosis of the disease. These were not talking shops. Technical experts met in Copenhagen in 1923 and 1928, and in Montevideo in 1930, to test large numbers of blood samples in the laboratory, to evaluate methods of treatment and to compare their findings with clinical diagnoses.
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Hugh Pennington is chair of the public inquiry into the 2005 South Wales E.coli outbreak. He lives in Aberdeen.
Other articles by this contributor:
The English Disease · Who’s to blame for BSE?
Smallpox Scares · Bioterrorism
Too much fuss? · the Sars virus
Wash Your Hands · Bugs
Why can’t doctors be more scientific? · The Great MMR Disaster
Myrtle Street · the Royal Liverpool Children’s Inquiry
Disasters and Disease · The Dangerous Dead
Don’t pick your nose · Staphylococcus aureus
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