In spite of all the claims made for mercury, it had long been realized that it does not "cure" the supposed "syphilis." Indeed it has become a medical axiom: "Once a syphilitic, always a syphilitic." A standard author says in a text book of materia medica for nurses: "Investigators have long believed that arsenic would be a specific against syphilis if some compound could be found which could be given in sufficiently large doses to kill the germ without killing the patient." For many years, medical alchemists have been searching for a poison that would kill germs in the body without destroying the body. They know that such a poison is, in the very nature of things, an impossible thing, but they continue to search for it.

   In 1910 Paul Ehrlich, a German Chemist, announced a combination of arsenic with other drugs which he claimed would destroy the spirochetes without killing the patient. This drug, dioxy-diamino-arsenobenzol-dihydro-chloride, he declared to be a specific for "syphilis". Because he thought the new drug would prove the salvation of "syphilitics", he called it salvarsan. Because, according to the "build-up," it was his 606th experiment, it became known as "606." Due to the failure of 606, Ehrlich continued his experiments until he performed 914 of them, giving us neo-salvarsan, or 914. This new salvarsan was produced in an effort to "avoid some of the disagreeable side actions of salvarsan."

   The salvarsan patents were held by the Germans. When the nations voided patent rights held by aliens during the World War, American pharmaceutical houses manufactured the two drugs under the names arsphenamine and neo-ars-phenamine. In England the drug is manufactured under the name, arsenobenzol.

   Writing in Hearst's International, for Oct. 1922, Paul de Kruif, formerly of the Rockefeller Institute, says in an article entitled "The Truth about Syphilis": "In 1909 this drug which Ehrlich called '606' was first tested on human beings suffering from this disease. The results were really magical. A patient one day might be covered with a severe syphilitic rash. A dose of the drug was given him, and presto! in twenty-four hours the rash had disappeared. The severe and loathsome sores and ulcers of the latter stages vanished in an almost equally prompt manner."

   It would seem that here, at last, was a real "cure" for a disease that never existed outside the minds of the deluded profession of pill-peddlers and serum squirters. But de Kruif hastens to add: "The first high hopes were soon shattered. For it was found that while the outward signs of the malady quickly vanished before a single dose of the new drug, relapses were almost sure to occur, sooner or later. What is more, numbers of fatal accidents began to be reported." He further says: "Twelve years have gone by since the brilliant discovery of Ehrlich. The fires of the first enthusiasm have died down. The cries of the knockers and critics have largely been silenced. (By professional ostracism. —Author). The drug has been modified into a new compound, called '914.' It is now known that, if a sufficient number of doses is given, there is far greater hope of cure than in the old days when mercury was the only weapon. Careful statistics have been compiled, especially by the British physicians. These show that when a patient is treated with '606' and mercury, his outlook for a healthful and useful life is bright." "Years must pass before it is really known whether this disease can be cured in a majority of cases."

   Their new drug, the one that worked like magic, killed the patients quickly. It was not always so slow and insidious in its operation as is mercury. All magic is of that character. "Scientific" minds still believe in magic in the realm of medicine, however. The "cure" of the skin eruptions proved to be nothing more than suppression In the very nature of things it could not have been otherwise. But then, the medical profession has considered suppression to be cure from time immemorial. Most chronic diseases are the result of suppression of acute disease. Cure as this is called, is mankind's greatest enemy. It is the only barrier between him, and health.

   Since the invention of neo-salvarsan, many new arsenical compounds have been concocted and tried out on human beings. Other "searchers" have extended Ehrlich's original 914 experiments into the thousands. One of these, tryparsmide, Becker tells us, is of "no value in ordinary infections," but is good in "resistant nervous syphilis." "It is dangerous in that partial blindness occasionally may result from its use." Kharsivan is the English name for another arsenical "remedy" for "syphilis". Arsenic and bismuth have been combined in a single drug called bismarsen. Another arsenical, acestarsone, called in France, Acetaisone, and in Germany, Spirocide, is the choice in treating infants. Becker tells us that, "in syphilis of the nervous system acestarsone is prepared in a special form for intravenous insertion." There are other arsenicals too numerous to mention.

   Thus it will be seen that "606" was not so specific but that Ehrlich continued to conjure up other formulas up to 914 and this is not so specific but that others are constantly conjuring up new "modifications." Arsenicals recently produced contain less arsenic than 606 and 914 and it is hoped that when these are "perfected" they will "prove less dangerous." Today, as Dr. Tilden so aptly says, these various formulae are "fitted by medical imagination to different types and phases of the wonderful disease, syphilis."

   Nothing shows more plainly the failure of the great specific and the profession's dissatisfaction with 606 and 914 as well as the other arsenicals they have, than their constant search for new "cures". Not alone are they searching for new arsenicals, but for "cures" outside the arsenicals.

   The arsenicals not only fail to cure, they also produce damage and death. The following quotations from Becker's Ten Million Americans Have It are to the point: "Arsphenamine, it should be understood, is a poisonous drug containing arsenic, and must be employed with great care to avoid serious developments." (Minor developments, though cumulative and progressive do not seem to disturb him. It would appear that it is all right to hurt the patient if he is not hurt too much.) "Neoarsphenamine is the drug which is used generally today. It is administered with less difficulty than arsphenamine; and, though less efficient and more poisonous, is the drug used throughout the world." (One wonders how they explain their preference for the "less efficient" and "more poisonous" drug.) "Arsphenamine does have several disadvantages, chief of which are its high cost (in comparison with previous treatments) and the reactions which follow its administration." "Reactions following the administration of arsphenamine and similar drugs vary from mild discomfort to serious illness. There is no medicine known which is not dangerous to a few individuals, owing to the peculiarity of the chemical make-up of their tissues, and the most simple medicaments occasionally bring serious results." "Sometimes there are local reactions to the intravenous use of arsphenamine or its substitutes."

   Instead of his last sentences being a defense of the use of arsenic, as he intends them to be, it is an indictment of the whole drug practice, not alone in "syphilis," but in all forms of disease. He says the arsenic induced reactions range all the way from "mild discomfort to serious illness." I should think the illness is really serious when it results in death. We have already quoted de Kruif that "numbers of fatal accidents" followed the first use of the drug. An article in Public Health Reports, July 10, 1936, tells of 63 deaths from the use of arsphenamine in the U. S. Navy during the period 1919-1935.

   The United States Dispensatory says of arsenic, that "while because of its general protoplasmic toxicity it has a certain degree of power as an anti-bacterial, it is too poisonous to man for use as a medical germicide. Arsenic in sufficient strength is capable of destroying the vitality of all forms of living matter." Yet, it is as anti-bacterial and this only, that arsenic is used in "syphilis." It is employed to kill the spirochetes and it often kills the patient. The Dispensatory says that "when applied to any ulcerated surface, arsenic may be absorbed with fatal results; death has indeed occured in a number of cases from the use of arsenic as an escharotic to tumors, cancerous ulcers, etc."

   Ancient armies used to poison the water along their line of retreat with arsenic. We have long used it to kill rats. All of the soluble salts or compounds of the drug may quickly destroy life, even in doses of two or three grains. De Kruif reminds us that some people are so "sensitive" to arsenic that "they can't stand the smallest doses without the possibility of severe even fatal skin inflammations."

   Arsenic does not merely produce immediate reactions. Its effects are cumulative. Its continued use in full medicinal doses, produces, among other troubles, oedema and itching of the eyelids, nausea, vomiting of mucous, diarrhea or dysentery, irritable and feeble heart, difficult breathing, disordered sensibility, herpes zoster, urticaria, eczema and other skin eruptions, jaundice and albuminuria (Bright's disease). Dr. Cabot gives it as one of the prominent causes of Bright's disease. This drug is capable of simulating about as many forms of skin disease as the medical profession says "syphilis" does. It destroys the blood cells and produces anemic pallor. In Preventive Medicine and Hygiene (1927) Dr. Rosenou tells us that it has been known for forty years that small quantities of arsenic, continued for a long period, may give rise to growths of a cancerous character.

   Does it not seem strange that just at the time, when there is a growing movement to abolish the spraying of fruits and vegetables with arsenic, the medical profession should propose wholesale arsenical poisoning as a boon to the race?

   Ehrlich did not consider his "remedy" 'to be harmless but advised its cautious use in properly selected cases. He gave the following contraindication to its use: irritable heart due to nervous causes, organic heart disease, valvular degeneration, aneurysm, old cases of cerebral hemorrhage (apoplexy), the aged, serious nephritis, diabetes and gastric ulcer.

   When taken in small and repeated doses arsenic produces fatty degeneration of the liver, heart (its most dangerous result), glands and muscles of the body. It disturbs sight, the disturbance ranging from temporary functional derangement to complete blindness. It often causes atrophy of the optic nerve, in which case the blindness is permanent. Ehrlich claimed that when blindness followed its use, it was due to "syphilis" and not to the drug. Dr. Koch, of tuberculine fame, caused blindness in 22 of his patients in treating sleeping sickness with arsenic. In these cases the blindness was not due to "syphilis."

   When a drug that is capable of producing atrophy of the optic nerve, as well as degeneration of the liver, heart, glands, and muscles of the body, if given in repeated doses over a period of time, is used, and blindness, paralysis, insanity, etc., follow, it is hardly fair to blame a supposed disease called "syphilis" for these results. At first Ehrlich thought one dose of his specific, especially if given in the "early stage" of "syphilis," would kill all the germs and "cure" the patient. This proved to be a mistake and it is now known that the arsenic must be given until it produces fatty degeneration, atrophy of the optic nerve, heart damage and death

   Drs. Gordon and Feldman report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Oct. 25, 1924), a case of acute yellow atrophy of the liver occurring in a young woman (age 29) after receiving treatment with neo-arsphenamine (914). She developed jaundice forcing the cessation of the treatment. The jaundice cleared up in a week, reappeared in another week accompanied by delirium and a few days later she died. The autopsy revealed acute inflammation of the kidneys, acute atrophy of the liver and adherent pericarditis (inflammation of the investing membrane of the heart). These authorities state that this is not an uncommon condition following injection of arsphenamine and neo-arsphenamine.

   Skin eruptions and inflammation following the use of these arsenical compounds are very common. Dr. Klauder, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, (March 22, 1924), divided these skin affections into three groups involving such things as redness, itching, scalding, pigmentation (discoloration), herpes zoster, morbid sensation and "localized fixed arsphenamine eruptions." The morbid sensation (paresthesia) is considered an expression of arsenical neuritis (inflammation of the nerves caused by arsenic) and invariably appears in the feet. If the arsenicals (Salvarsan, neo-Salvarsan, arsphenamine and neo-arsphenamine, etc.) are continued, it ascends up the legs. Arsphenamine has been found to kill tubercular patients.

   That arsenic builds pathology is certain. Why, then accuse a disease called "syphilis" of being responsible for the pathology that follows after years of intermittent periods of treatment by this and other deadly drugs? If arsenic can and does cause atrophy of the liver, inflammation of the heart, inflammation of the kidneys, jaundice, neuritis, and death, what need is there to look to an imaginary disease for the causes of these and similar conditions in patients treated with arsenic? Why kill a person with a powerful poison and then say the disease killed him?

   Prof. McDonagh, clinician to the outdoor department of the Loch Hospital, London, says in his "Biology and Treatment of Venereal Disease" (1915 edition), that after the fourth year, "treatment is by no means indicated, it may even be a contraindication, as I have seen several cases in which I am certain that a degenerative nervous lesion was precipitated, owing to the check which treatment put upon the production of systemic anti-bodies." Actually, the degenerative nervous lesions are due to the destructive effects of the drugs upon the nervous system.

   J. Haskel Kritzer, M.D., says: "Some syphilologists state that they had noticed no ill effects from '606', but this is due to the fact that those suffering from chronic Salvarsan (arsenic) poisoning become patients of other specialists whose practices are limited to nervous and mental disorders."

   A condition of the kidneys called nephrosis is frequently the result of mercury and arsphenamine used in the treatment of so-called "syphilis." Degeneration of the epithelial tissues of the tubes of the kidneys occurs. Casts, albumen, pus, and red blood cells are found in the urine as a result of these drugs. "Arsphenamine alone, when properly used, causes only slight irritation, neo-arsphenamine less, and mercury is by far the most important factor in renal irritation. Whether inunctions or intramuscular injections of mercury succinamide are given seems to make little difference in the time of appearance or extent of renal irritation. The renal irritation resulting from combined arsphenamine and mercury is practically equivalent to that produced by the two drugs given separately," says the "Practical Medicine Series. 1924."

   In the booklet previously quoted from, issued by the Board of Health of the State of New York, the following instructions for the after care of the patient, who has received a dose of arsenic, are given: "Following the injection, the patient should be allowed to remain in a recumbent position for a few minutes (usually five minutes is sufficient) and then slowly assume the upright position. If the patient moves too quickly at this time he may suffer with vertigo. He should then go home and at once lie down for several hours. Frequently patients will feel so well that they will insist on resuming their duties. Such activity is not advised. If a reaction occurs, hot water bottles to the feet, ice to the head and abstinence from food are required."

   Arsenic ranks with mercury in destructiveness and in its capacities as a builder of pathology. It seems strange that a profession that can study the pathology produced by these two drugs can, at the same time, employ them in treating the sick and then blame the so-called disease for the effects produced by the drugs. This is the drug that is recommended through the whole of pregnancy, notwithstanding the fact that arsphenamine is especially harmful to infants.

   In view of the foregoing evidence of the harmfulness of arsenic (and more evidence could easily be given), I leave it to the intelligent reader to properly characterize the following statement of medical promoter, Thomas Parran, who uses his position as head of the United States Public Health Service, not in the interest of public health, but to build business for a dying profession. He says that for "syphilis" control "we have drugs called the arsphenamines; compounded of arsenic with other chemicals derived from benzol which poison the spirochetes in the blood and tissues without injuring the person who harbors the spirochete."

   I do not intend to devote so much space to the other drugs now employed in the treatment of so-called "syphilis", but shall tell enough of their evils to enable the reader to understand why they should be avoided as carefully as should mercury and arsenic.

   William Wallace, of Dublin, introduced iodide of potassium in 1834 as "valuable for stubborn secondaries and for the gummy tumors of late syphilis." Bismuth was introduced in 1922 by Levaditi, of Paris, which more and more is supplanting mercury, because it is less poisonous.

   Iodine once ranked next to mercury as a "cure" for "syphilis." Like all other drugs, used in treating "syphilis" iodine is very irritating to the alimentary canal, and quickly upsets the stomach. Taken internally this drug produces skin disorders ranging from mild erythema (blushing) to pustules. The eruptions it produces are capable of simulating almost all forms of skin disease. Purpura, a very mild form of inflammation, sometimes follows its use. Inflammation of the mucous membranes of the body is also caused by this drug. These inflammations indicate that the body is attempting to defend itself against the drug at every point. Lachrymation (flow of tears), ringing in the ears, nervousness, depression and other annoying symptoms follow its use.

   Some idea of the power of this drug to work injury to the body is gained when we see it produce purpura and pustules on the skin, the most resistant of all the organs of the body. If it is capable of so affecting the skin and mucous membranes, what may we expect internally? Its power to produce glandular atrophy is well known. Iodism, or iodine poisoning, is characterized by coryza (catarrhal inflammation of the nose), salivation, and skin eruptions. In Materia Medica it is classed as an "alterative" because it "modifies" cellular activity. It also suppresses exudations, thus locking up within the body, matter that it seeks to eliminate. How much of the pathology of "syphilis" is due to the disease proper and how much is due to the employment of such poisonous and destructive "remedies?" A correct answer to this question will send "tertiary syphilis" back to the realms of limbo where it was before the beginning of the use of mercury. When the public learns that this huge nightmare, "syphilis," is a medically created monster, that it is the product of what we call "science," then we will hear less of "syphilis" and its "ravages" upon the human body. We will soon empty our insane asylums, also.

   Potassium is frequently employed in the treatment of "syphilis." This drug is equally as destructive as mercury and arsenic. However, since potassium salts are normal constituents of the human body, they are much more easily eliminated than mercury and arsenic. Mercury, in particular, is difficult and slow of elimination. The ability of potassium to build pathology is about equal to that of iodine.

   In large doses by the mouth potassium salts act as powerful irritants to the gastro-intestinal canal and as depressants to the circulation. They disorder digestion, overwork the kidneys, where they are eliminated, often causing albuminuria or Blight's disease. This deadly drug destroys the tissues of the body by combining with their water, dissolving their albumens, and saponifying their fats. In large doses it decomposes the red-blood cells, paralyzes the motor nerves and is thus a most potent cause of destruction of the brain and nervous system and of nervous and mental diseases.

   Bismuth is also employed in the treatment of the nightmare, "syphilis." It is hardly necessary to state here that it is fully recognized that it does not cure the supposed "syphilis". What I wish to emphasize is that it does build part of the pathology that is called "tertiary syphilis." For instance, Leredde, in the Bulletin of the French Society of Dermatology and Syphilis (Vol. 31, 1924) describes the occurrence of a nitroid crisis following the second injection into the muscles of a bismuth preparation. This patient had previously been given forty injections of salvarsan without appreciably altering the Wassermann reaction. The reaction occurred immediately after the second injection of bismuth and presented engorgement of the skin, lips and tongue, a brief loss of consciousness followed by loss of speech. Another authority in this same volume describes a violent skin disease covering the whole body except the hands, legs, feet and face, immediately following injections of bismuth. So great are the dangers of bismuth poisoning that efforts are made to antidote it by following it with doses of sodium compound. Another method used in an endeavor to avoid these crises is to draw out an amount of the patient's blood equal to the size of the dose of the drug before injecting the drug. It would be difficult to explain just how this would detoxify or neutralize the drug. It never seems to enter their empty heads that the way to avoid the effects of the drug it to keep it out of the system.

   The bismuth "must be injected deep into the muscles of the buttocks." Becker tells us that "the injection (of bismuth) is not very painful, but sometimes painful lumps develop."

   The United States Dispensatory says "when applied to raw surfaces *** the subnitrate of bismuth undergoes some chemical change and sufficient of the metal may be absorbed to cause fatal poisoning.

   "The symptoms of bismuth poisoning which have followed the surgical use of bismuth subnitrate are as follows: there appears first a bluish line on the edge of the gum which spreads and becomes darker in color until the whole tongue and pharynx are almost black. There also develops ulcerative stomatitis with salivation, nephritis, vomiting, and in some cases mental disturbances and methemoglobinemia. The mortality in this poisoning is high."

   Speaking of the injection of bismuth preparations into chronic fistulas of bone tuberculosis, the Dispensatory says, "in a number of cases the injections of the bismuth paste into abscess cavities has led to bismuth poisoning."

   An Irishman once swallowed a potato bug. He rushed into the house and quickly swallowed a dose of "Paris green." Next morning in telling his friend of his experience he concluded by saying: "And begorral Pat, that d - - - little bug almost killed me."

   The whole attitude of the medical profession towards "tertiary syphilis" is just like that of the Irishman towards the bug. They give the poor patient all of the most virulent poisons they can find, and when these produce the troubles we have described, they say these are due to the disease and not to the drugs. Literally, in this case, the troubles are said to be due to the bugs (germs) and not to the poisons.

   If such a disease as "syphilis" really existed, I would much rather take my chances with it than to take these drugs into my system regularly over a period of time, sometimes for years, in the foolish effort to "cure" the disease. The superstition of "cure" has certainly led mankind to do many foolish and dangerous things. All this will end when it is realized that there is no such thing as curing disease.

   "Tertiary syphilis" is a medical creation. The paresis, paralysis, locomotor ataxia, insanity, blindness, destruction of the organs of the body, gummata (tumors), and the whole long list of morbid conditions that are described as "tertiary syphilis", are produced by the treatment and the nerve destroying influence of the fear and morbid mental states that are built by gruesome tales the medical profession tells of the ravages of this disease, even unto the third and fourth generation.

   These deadly drugs, serums, and vaccines, and many more like them, are doing duty for the profession, not only in a disease called "syphilis," but in many other conditions of impaired health. The sanitariums and asylums of the world are full of the victims of such drugs, and such fears. The profession builds all this unnecessary pathology, and then says it is due to "syphilis." And it is due to "syphilis" — the only "syphilis" that ever existed — that is, the "syphilis" the profession builds with its treatment and psychology.

   The syphilization that is destroying the race consists of a state of physical degeneracy, brought on by sensuality, onto which is grafted a state of mind that is worse than the physical degeneracy, and the destructive effects of the most powerful drugs known to an antiquated school of medicine. For the last two of these, the medical profession must shoulder the whole blame. For the first they have to share the blame with theologians, politicians, and pedagogues.

   I have nothing against the fish of the seas, but I do believe that if we follow the suggestion of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and throw all the drugs into the sea, there would never be another case of "syphilis." Let me repeat: "syphilis" is a medical creation. It is a disease and a state of mind that the medical profession has cursed the race with. It is a medical crime.