William Wallace

William Wallace (1791-1837). On July 8th, 1827, he published an article in “The Lancet” (Volume 28, Issue 723, pages 534-540) in which he documents that secondary syphilis lesions transmitted the disease. In his experiments, Wallace inoculated exanthematic ulcer secretions from two patients with secondary syphilis into three healthy subjects. With subsequent carefully documented clinical observation, he was able to demonstrate the transmissibility of secondary syphilis and its incubation period. Later, he treated the inoculated patients with mercury and “cured” them of syphilis.

https://sti.bmj.com/content/sextrans/41/1/9.full.pdf