SYPHILIS 537 



microscopic bodies in the humours of persons suffering from 

 secondary syphilis. The objects they described were very 

 indefinite, and their observations were not regarded very 

 seriously. It is very difficult, even in the light of our present 

 knowledge, to be certain that the objects they pictured are 

 connected with those which we now know to be the cause of 

 the disease. 



It was not until the year 1905, when Giemsa's stain was better 

 handled, that something definite appeared. A young German 

 doctor named Siegel had begun work on the subject. He seems 

 to have realised that there is some resemblance between syphilis 

 and the affections known as the zymotic diseases — small-pox, 

 vaccinia, scarlet fever, measles, etc. — inasmuch as they are all 

 accompanied by skin-rashes, though they differ widely in many 

 other respects. He remembered that Guanieri had, in 1892, 

 described peculiar bodies in the cells taken from the vesicles in 

 cases of small-pox and in pustules caused by vaccination— cell- 

 inclusions, Guanieri called them, or cytoryctes. Siegel examined 

 syphilitics and found cell-inclusions somewhat resembling those 

 described by Guanieri in small-pox and in vaccine lymph ; they 

 were found in cells taken from syphilitic ulcers. Siegel called 

 these bodies Cytoryctes lues, to distinguish them from Cytoryctes 



f 



Some phases of Cytoryctes lues (Siegel). 



variolm and vaccinias of Guanieri. Yet his method consisted 

 largely of staining dead cells, and he had no means of improving 

 his observations or of proving his interpretations. But, among 

 the others, he described a form of his Cytoryctes, a many-tailed, 

 free body which we know now as an appearance often taken by 

 the parasite of syphilis, though he was unable to bring forward 

 any evidence that the objects he saw were parasites at all. 



Siegel's statements (Abhandl. d. h. preuss. Akad. Wiss. 1905) 

 gave rise to considerable discussion at the time. Most scientists 

 were opposed. Many said that the Cytoryctes were artefacts 

 made by faulty technique, and that they were due to degenera- 



