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Therapy and societal responses, 16th-18th centuries
- To thinkers of the Enlightenment, syphilis threathened to undermine the view of a new world based on science and reason.
- Congenital syphilis was the leading killer of infants at most Parisian hospitals.
- Diderot and other political theorists recognized the importance of healthy children to a strong and progressive state.
Copyright 1999 by the University of Florida