When one looks at history, it's like we're on a loop. And I think a big part of that is because we fail to ever "really" learn from the past. And I think one pa

When one looks at history, it's like we're on a loop. And I think a big part of that is because we fail to ever "really" learn from the past. And I think one part of that is demonizing the past with labels, instead of actually trying to understand what really happened and why. Because when we overly demonize things it makes it impossible to imagine any reasonable person, let alone ourselves, ever engaging in anything even remotely awful - 'it could never happen again.' But of course it will, and it won't just be "evil" people doing it. So to your post here - you're again factually mistaken. There were indeed numerous treatments for syphilis in the 19th century, as the paper specifically mentions treatment being withheld should have clued you into. These treatments had significant side effects, but such is often the nature of medicine. What would you think of a doctor that intentionally withheld chemo or other similarly dangerous treatments to thousands of cancer patients, to instead observe what happened to them absent treatment? That is what happened in Norway, and again I'm sure the doctor had the best of intentions, presumably he was working to develop a more effective treatment. If you have any factual or logical arguments I'm more than happy to hear them, and indeed perhaps there is something I am not considering. But I find the appeals to emotion and bias mixed with a healthy helping of ad hominem and straw man quite silly, and I will not engage with that.