 The tropical disease of yaws, which caused skin lesions and produced a positive Wasserman reaction, could also be mistaken for syphilis.Not only were some people sent to lock hospitals unnecessarily, those that were actually infected had little chance of a cure until antibiotic therapy became available in the 1940s.Penicillin was introduced for the treatment of gonorrhoea in 1943 but was only generally available from 1944.