How to Get Rid of Syphilis

Many a doctor contends that the only way to stamp out syphilis is to find and treat every syphilitic. Last week the city of Birmingham, Ala., having tried that simple-sounding formula, was ready to report: it works.

In the first compulsory civilian mass attack on syphilis in history, the city had blood-tested, tagged and treated virtually every infected citizen. A unique state law requires every Alabamian between 14 and 50 to take a Wassermann-like test. After some trial runs in a few small rural counties, health officers two months ago started the big test in Jefferson County.

Testing centers were set up in Birmingham's filling stations, theater lobbies, churches, every available public gathering place. A huge serological laboratory in a basement of Hillman Hospital, at the University of Alabama's medical school, examined as many as 15,000 blood specimens a day. The city blossomed with placards announcing "free treatment for syphilis." While they were about it, health officials offered voluntary gonorrhea treatments, exhorting the citizenry by posters, newspapers and spot radio announcements, with the promise: "PENICILLIN CURES GONORRHEA IN FOUR HOURS." The U.S. Public Health Service came across with the penicillin.

Citizens of Birmingham flocked in amiably for their tests. Some strong men fainted. High-school boys & girls arrived in whooping droves, made a lark of it. Everybody got registration slips and had to carry them about like draft cards. By last week the county had given 287,987 tests, examined virtually every eligible citizen. Result: 2% of the white population and 30% of the Negroes were found to have syphilis. All with infections less than four years old (older cases were considered non-catching) were ordered to report for treatment at hospitals, health centers or to a private doctor. Some 2,000 had already been admitted for the nine-day rapid treatment. Health officials, watching Birmingham as a pattern, looked forward to a nationwide fight against syphilis.

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