Framboesia or Yaws

This disease is confined almost exclusively to the negro race; it originated on Guinea coast of Africa. It is a constitutional disorder, attended often with fever, and by a peculiar papular eruption, sometimes having almost a crimson appearance like that of a wild raspberry, hence its name. Its probable cause was syphilis, spread among the negroes of West Africa by the English traders. Proofs of its venereal origin are as follows:

1. That it is contagious, and can be inoculated in the same manner as matter taken from an indurated chancre.
2. It is accompanied by ulcerated throat and pains in the bones.
3. The eruption is of a secondary specific type, though not of the usual lean-ham color but yellowish-white, having an ulcerative tendency.
4. It is transmitted by parents to their offspring.
5. Such children infect those who suckle them.
6. The   disease  is  much improved  by  mercurial   treatment.
7. The pathological histology of the papules resembles the tissues found in syphilitic gummata.

The disease begins with malaise and fever, pains in the head and bones which are worse at night, and ulcerated throat. The body becomes covered with yellowish-white patches of varying size, with the formation of papules which break down and ulcerate under a scab with great loss of tissue. The eruption generally breaks out in the face, the neck, the upper and lower extremities, the parts of generation, the perineum, the hips, and about the anus. They are much less frequently observed about the trunk, and are not so often seen on the hairy scalp. They may form on the nostrils where the mucous membrane joins the skin, and here the yaws may assume an elongated form nearly closing the nostril, and hanging down on the lip. The same form may be observed about the eyelid. Near to the mouth they may appear in such numbers and so closely set together as to form almost a ring round the mouth. This is especially the case in children. Around the anus also they sometimes coalesce and form one projecting circular band an inch and more in breadth.


An attack of framboesia varies much in severity as regards the size and number of actual yaws.

After the disappearance of the yaws without ulceration, a dark spot is left where each yaw has been and of corresponding size. These spots are of deeper shade than the natural black of the skin, and they remain for many years, but may possibly wear out in time. The skin is quite smooth, and the texture uninjured. In white skins the spots are of lighter hue than natural. When, however, the disease ulcerates scars are left.

Should yaws not properly develop its several early stages the general health suffers, the patient becomes cachectic, unhealthy ulcerations appear over the body, especially about the joints, which swell and become painful, and offensive effluvia are given off from the body, and the attacked dies a lingering death, or becomes crippled, more or less, by the deep ulcerations.

The mercurial preparations, and Jatropha curcas, are the principal internal remedies.