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MARY MURPHY:

What about syphilis? Was that widespread?

CARROLL LUPTON:

Well, it was- Being a family doctor-

CARROLL LUPTON:

-where they got treatment, and diagnosis, for their venereal infections. Being a relatively young one-and the more sexually active or promiscuous people were the younger people-they'd come to me rather than going some of the older folks, because they just felt more comfortable. I always tried to make everybody feel like they was most important person that we had, and, when they came in, help them to relax. I never fussed at them because they had a venereal disease, because the good Lord, I guess He put those urges in us. And, after all, it was not my position to lecture them on those things. From talking with the people today, and reading the statistics, I believe we have just about as much venereal infections now as we did then. The only difference is, now we have a drug to treat them. When I first started, we had the arsenical injection, and it took an injection of that, or bismuth of mercury, every week for eighteen months, for syphilis. And it was something that was long drawn out. Lot of the doctors, the older ones, would give them about a month's treatment, and their signs and symptoms would go away, but the infectious part in their body did not go away. They could still transmit the disease, and it would show up on them later in life in the advanced stages. And syphilis used to be a great killer. But today, with penicillin and some of the antibiotics we have, syphilis -most of the time-can be controlled really easily. The gonorrhea infections that we had, we had no specific drug whatever. We treat local treatment, to relieve the symptoms. And, if we were lucky, we could get the symptoms cleared up in about six or eight weeks. And he or she was infectious all that time. And sometimes, you would try to get them to come back over regular intervals, over a period of a year or so, just for a check-up, to be sure that it was gone. Now, of course, they come in, and if they've got syphilis, you give them one great big massive dose of penicillin. One time, and usually that's all the treatment they have to have for it. If you get it early. Most of the doctors didn't have facility for early diagnosis, and they'd have to send a blood test, and send it down to Raleigh, wait to get it back, and all that stuff. I fortunately trained in the Marine Hospital, back where we treated a lot of merchant marine sailors from all over the world, and we learned to use the microscope, and tell them in five minutes whether it was or not. 'Course, we'd always confirm it with a blood test; we'd have to send to Raleigh.