Life & Times and Salvarsan

The progress of medical science is often the mercury treatment of syphilis then colleague Neisser in Breslau, with whom written as if Western scientists brought used in Europe. Yoshio Kosaku, one of his he had shared a secondary school bench.5 effective cures into the modern world. Japanese students, then further developed Neisser published a very positive report in The story of Salvarsan, the first modern this formula. Thunberg believed that he had the leading medical journal of the day.6 scientific treatment for syphilis, shows a taught them an efficacious treatment and different story; one of exchange between that this was a fair exchange for the many NOBEL PRIZES Europe and . botanical specimens they had collected for Soon Salvarsan was widely used. It Syphilis appeared as a new disease him. But he was wrong on two counts. remained a toxic organoarsenic compound, in Europe and Asia in the 15th century First, we do not now think that mercury difficult to handle, with a great tendency to (Europe in 1495, in Japan in 1512). Over is an efficacious treatment for syphilis. ‘burn up veins’, but it rapidly superseded its first centuries syphilis changed from a Second, mercury treatment was already mercury. Salvarsan and similar compounds very aggressive disease with a high early widely known and practised in Japan, but by remained the treatment choice for syphilis mortality to the more indolent disease we a different school of doctors with a higher until , with its much lower toxicity, know today and which may have affected social status; those who had studied Chinese appeared after WWII. 10% of the population in England at the medicine. A book describing the mercury Ehrlich was granted a Nobel prize in end of the 19th century.1 It was the AIDS treatment of syphilis had been published in 1908. Sahachiro Hata received three, epidemic of its day. Japan by this group of doctors in 1725, long unsuccessful, nominations for a Nobel before Thunberg reached Japan.3,4 prize, one by Kocher, the Swiss thyroid THE JAPANESE CONNECTION surgeon and two by Japanese colleagues. The Swedish botanist Carl Thunberg FINDING A ‘’ FOR Hata returned to Japan where he became (1743–1828) believed that he was the first SYPHILIS the leading Japanese microbiologist of his person to supply a modern treatment for Now for Salvarsan; recognised as the first generation. syphilis to the Japanese. He was a disciple scientific and effective cure for syphilis. To summarise, finding the cure for syphilis of the botanist Carl Linnaeus and one of It was discovered by a Japanese man; took several centuries. The Japanese played the very few European botanists to gain Professor Sahachiro Hata. Admittedly, an active and, in the person of Sahachiro some access to Japan during the Tokugawa this was again in the context of a cultural Hata, an essential part. period (1603-1868) when it was closed to exchange; between the Japanese and Westerners. On his return he compiled a German empires on this occasion. The Gervase Vernon, Flora Japonica which was acknowledged Japanese had opened to the world since GP, Essex. by both Europeans and Japanese as a 1854 and were now sending 16 graduates Email: [email protected] significant advance in their botanical a year to prestigious German universities. knowledge. European visitors of Thunberg’s Sahachiro Hata had already done good work DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp19X702533 time, however, did not have the feelings of in Japan researching bubonic plague with superiority to Japanese culture that would Kitasato, Shibasaburo (the co-discoverer typify their 19th century successors; Edo of ). He was sent to Ehrlich () was a city of a million people, bigger in . , the German- REFERENCES 2 than any town in his native Sweden. Jewish student from Breslau (now known 1. Szreter S. The prevalence of syphilis in Thunberg’s contacts with the native as Wrocław, Poland) who had made his England and Wales on the eve of the Great Japanese people was limited by the way to the heart of the German medical War: re-visiting the estimates of the Royal Commission on venereal diseases 1913-1916. Japanese government to the interpreters establishment, was running a programme Soc Hist Med 2014; 27(3): 508-529. in Dejima, the island where foreign visitors to find a ‘magic bullet’ for syphilis. He was 2. Skuncke MC. Carl Peter Thunberg. Botanist had to stay. These interpreters’ posts were testing compounds synthetised by the and Physician. Sweden: Swedish Collegium held by families over several generations chemist Alfred Bertheim. Sahachiro Hata for Advanced Study, 2014. and the role had a low status in Japan. As was given compound 606 to test (the sixth of 3. Trambaiolo D. Antisyphilitic mercury drugs well as the interpreting, they worked as the sixth series). He set up a rabbit model of in early modern China and Japan. Asiatische doctors and taught medicine; belonging to syphilis and found the compound effective Studien/Études Asiatiques 2015; 69(4): 997- 1016. the ‘Rangaku’ school which looked to the in vivo. Human experiments followed. 4. Trambaiolo DM. Writing, Authority and West. To some of them Thunberg taught Some Salvarsan was sent by Erlich to his Practice in Tokugawa Medicine, 1650-1850. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2014. 5. Vernon G. Learning from history: why we should remember the German University in “...mercury treatment was already widely known and Breslau (now Wrocław). Br J Gen Pract 2018; practised in Japan, but by a different school of doctors DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp18X698141. 6. Neisser A. Treatment of syphilis with with a higher social status, those who had studied Ehrlich’s preparation 606. [In German] Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 1910; Chinese medicine.” 36(1889):1993.

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