Syphilis Among Arabs in the Near East

The Evolutionary Cycle of the Treponematoses

“…The role of other animate objects, such as insects, is uncertain, although treponemes have been shewn to persist in wound-feeding diptera (Satchell and Harrison, 1953), and such insects may be found on the open lesions of all of the treponematoses (Akrawi, 1949;Hasselmann, 1938). It has been considered that flies do not play an important part in relation to other factors.…”

“…These include sodomy (Hasselmann, 1938;Madden, 1904) and bestiality (with donkeys- Hasselmann, 1938), Fraser (1921) described three cases of corporeal chancre arising from the African practice of Metcha-what McArthur (1923) later described as "revolting and ribald sex distortions" (manual and corporeal manipulations).…”

“…While this is probably because civilization has been slow in reaching such localities, so that primitive social conditions have persisted there the longest, the role of the dry atmosphere in causing cracking of the lips, which facilitates the oral introduction of the treponeme (Hasselmann, 1938), may partially explain some of the present-day geographical distribution of this disease. (d) Host Factors.-Other diseases of the host, e.g.…”

“…In many parts of the world syphilis also is not venereal but is a non-venereal contagious complaint of children, particularly in the Middle East (Kail, 1955) and in Africa (Guthe and Willcox, 1954). Such so-called endemic syphilis can be found in Iraq (Akrawi, 1949;Csonka, 1952), Iran (Gremliza 1956; Ansari, Faghih, Hajian, and Bijam, 1957), Syria (Hudson, 1928(Hudson, , 1937(Hudson, , 1946Luger, 1958), Saudi Arabia (Chaglassian, Bustani, and Anderson, 1952;El Ghoroury, 1954), Transjordan (Hasselmann, 1938), and Turkey (Berke, 1950;Marchionini, 1952;Christiansen, 1954). It was formerly more prevalent in Palestine (McQueen, 1934;Katzenellenbogen, 1956), Anatolia, and Mespotamia (During-Pascha, 1902;1918), In this region it has been known under a number of local names, including bejel (Hudson, 1928), Firjal (McQueen, 1934), loath, latta, laghout, abo-laghif, jifar (Hasselmann, 1938), and balash (Chaglassian and others, 1952).…”

Aortitis in Bejel: A PRELIMINARY REPORT

“…Hudson (1937) stated that he had never found a clinically substantiated case of aortic valve disease or aneurysm in bejel, and that in Bedouin patients hypertension was virtually unknown, and cardiovascular syphilis practically absent. Macqueen (1934) and Hasselmann (1938) do not deal with the subject. Akrawi (1949) stated that " the matter cannot be considered as settled unless field work among the tribes is done on a large scale".…”