Serving to treat, prevent, or counteract syphilis or its symptoms.
From anti- (against) + syphilitic (relating to syphilis, likely from Syphilus, a character in a 1530 poem about the disease). Medical terminology that solidified in the 18th-19th centuries.
Before antibiotics, arsenic was the main antisyphilitic treatment—people literally chose slow poisoning over the disease, and the successful treatment of syphilis with arsenic actually inspired the hunt for better drugs, leading to penicillin and antibiotics.
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