In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries congenital syphilis was a major cause of infant mortality in France but mercury, the preferred treatment for the disease, could not be safely given to infants. In the 1780s the Vaugirard hospital in Paris began to treat affected infants by giving mercury to wet nurses, who transmitted it to infants through their milk. Despite the highly contagious nature of syphilis and the dangerous side-effects of mercury, the practice of using healthy wet nurses to treat syphilitic infants spread throughout France and continued into the nineteenth century.

Contributor: Joan Sherwood Joan Sherwood is a retired professor who taught in the Department of History at Queen's University.

"Sherwood compellingly investigates the social and ethical implications of this medical innovation, and describes in thrilling detail the legal consequences for families and doctors when infected wet-nurses sued for damages." Merilyn Simonds, The Kingston Whig Standard --- "Sherwood's book gives us an important and engrossing analysis of the legal, ethical, and institutional dimensions surrounding wet nurses and the treatment of syphilitic children. She convincingly demonstrates that disadvantaged women used the law to shif ---

"Sherwood compellingly investigates the social and ethical implications of this medical innovation, and describes in thrilling detail the legal consequences for families and doctors when infected wet-nurses sued for damages." Merilyn Simonds, The Kingston Whig Standard
"Sherwood's book gives us an important and engrossing analysis of the legal, ethical, and institutional dimensions surrounding wet nurses and the treatment of syphilitic children. She convincingly demonstrates that disadvantaged women used the law to shift medico-legal practice and professional ethics. The book is invaluable reading for scholars working on the history of public health and welfare institutions, as well as the social history of women and the family in modern France." H-France