The Oslo Study

The Oslo study (1891–1910) was an observational study of untreated syphilis at Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet in Oslo, Norway. Under the supervision of the department head, Cæsar Boeck, treatment was withheld from approximately 2,000 patients with syphilis between the period of 1891 and 1910. The results of Boeck's patient observations were later documented by his successor Edvin Bruusgaard in the paper "The Fate of Syphilitics who had received no Specific Treatment" (1929).

The results of the study greatly influenced American researchers who conducted the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932–1972), in which treatment was withheld from African American men with syphilis.

Background

In the 18th century, the standard treatment for syphilis was mercury, typically in the form of mercuric chloride, because it was believed that the sweating and salivation caused by mercury would help patients to purge harmful substances from their bodies. As the effects of mercury poisoning became increasingly well documented in 19th century, many physicians began to reject mercury as a cure. The number of syphilis cases in Norway rose in the 1870s and 1880s, due to rapid urbanization and poverty. These economic conditions also contributed to the growth of prostitution as an industry. In an attempt to curb the spread of syphilis, prostitutes were arrested and subjected to public medical examinations. Those found to have symptoms of syphilis were involuntarily sent to hospitals for treatment.

Study

Cæsar Boeck, head of the Department of Dermatology at Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet in Oslo, Norway, believed that mercury was ineffective and that it interfered with the body's natural defense mechanisms. He consequently prohibited the use of mercury to treat patients in his wards and began withholding all treatment from patients in his wards. These patients included men and women with primary and secondary syphilis. Under Boeck's direction, treatment was ultimately withheld from approximately 2,000 patients between 1891 and 1910. He recorded detailed observations of his patients, who were hospitalized until their symptoms had cleared sufficiently. Patients remained hospitalized for an average of 3.6 months, with the shortest hospital stay being 1 month and the longest being 12 months.

Caesar Boeck may have been influenced by his uncle Carl Wilhelm Boeck who also opposed the use of mercury. Carl Wilhelm preferred the treatment method developed by French physician Joseph-Alexandre Auzias-Turenne, who exposed patients infected with syphilis to infectious material taken from the chancres of patients with early-stage syphilis. This was intended to inoculate patients against the disease in a manner similar to variolation. Carl Wilhelm exposed 1,075 patients to infectious material, which had a negative impact on their health. Caesar Boeck took a different approach by recommending that his patients improve their health through rest and diet. He began administering the antibiotic drug Salvarsan to his patients in 1910, shortly after the drug was introduced.

Between 1925 and 1927, Edvin Bruusgaard conducted a follow up study to document the health outcomes for 473 former patients who had been denied treatment by Boeck. He published his findings in a paper titled "The Fate of Syphilitics who had received no Specific Treatment" in 1929. His paper claimed that 27.9% of the surveyed patients had been spontaneously cured. It also claimed that 70% of all syphilis patients were not inconvenienced by the disease, although it acknowledged the severe symptoms experienced by the other 30%, including cardiovascular disease and premature death.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Trygve Gjestland re-examined the cases of 1,404 patients, 80% of the total number of patients who were denied treatment by Boeck. He had the intention of determining the affect of untreated early-stage syphilis on mortality, and the impact of late stage syphilis. Gjestland published his findings as a thesis in 1955.

Impact on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

The Oslo study had a major impact on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which was conducted in the United States between 1932 and 1972. Bruusgaard's paper on the Oslo study was the only available study of untreated syphilis in 1931, when the U.S. Public Health Service commissioned Taliaferro Clark's proposal to study the progression of syphilis in African American men.

While Gjestland was working on his thesis, he also attracted interest from American researchers involved in the Tuskegee study. Veneriologist Joseph Earle Moore, a consultant for the Tuskegee study, visited Oslo to review Gjestland's data in 1947, and J.R. Heller, head of the Venereal Disease Division of the United States Public Health Service, also expressed interest. As a result of Heller and Moore's influence, Gjestland received funding from the United States Public Health Service. While Gjestland was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City, he met with researchers from Tuskegee to discuss their findings. Their research was included in chapter 2 of his thesis.

Based on the Oslo study, the Tuskegee researchers determined that syphilis was more dangerous and transmissible without treatment. Moore stated that the Oslo study should never be repeated. However, he and the other Tuskegee researchers still conducted their study of African American men, under the justification that African Americans were less intelligent and more promiscuous. They also believed that, outside of the study, African Americans were unlikely to seek medical treatment for syphilis. Moore stated that "syphilis in the negro is in many respects almost a different disease from syphilis in the white."

The experiment likely also influenced Hugh S. Cumming's hypothesis that the Tuskegee study might demonstrate the non-necessity of treatment for syphilis.

References

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Syphilis
Observational study
Human rights abuses in Norway
Human subject research
1891 establishments in Norway
1910 disestablishments in Norway