by Léa Delmaire
Book review "Christian Bonah, Guillaume Linte and Alexandre Wenger, Maladies infectieuses sans fin. Le cas de la syphilis pour penser la mobilisation-démobilisation prophylactique (XXe–XXIe siècle)"
In: European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health, Brill
Date: 27 April 2023
While the advent of biomedicine saw new hope for the eradication of infectious diseases, only in the case of smallpox was this hope fulfilled. Why do some of the diseases for which humanity has found a cure continue to exist and circulate, and even to circulate widely? This book addresses this question through the case study of syphilis and an interdisciplinary perspective on the last century. It explores the reconfigurations of the fight against syphilis, from the mobilisation against a ‘social scourge’ until the recent ‘re-emergence’ of syphilis as a problem requiring renewed biomedical attention. The main originality of the book, however, lies in its focus on the quick ‘oblivion’ of both the disease and the fear it provoked, along with the ‘social’ solutions implemented against it, once penicillin was introduced in the 1940s. The structure of the book is also original: the remarkably concise main text authored by three historians of medicine is enriched by a dozen inserts written in French or English by eleven additional authors amongst whom are anthropologists, specialists of visual culture, medical doctors, a public health nurse, an association’s official, etc.