3o8 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



brane of the mouth becomes raw in places. Even without treatment the 

 secondary stage of the disease passes away in time; it may last a few months 

 or it may persist for a year or two. 



If syphilis produced no effects except its primary and secondary stages 

 it could almost be ignored, for there is little inconvenience or physical 

 suffering. The serious nature of the disease appears years later. Insanity, 

 paralysis, and disease of the heart and blood vessels and other conditions 

 of the so-called tertiary stages develop. The lack of suffering during the 

 early stages of syphilis is one of the most dangerous features of the disease. 



The most distressing consequences of syphilis occur when the late de- 

 structive action of the spirochetes is centered on the nervous system. The 

 tissue of the brain and spinal cord is destroyed and replaced with scars. It 

 can no longer function normally. If the brain is involved, insanity results; 

 in its most pronounced form this insanity is called paresis. 



In locomotor ataxia the syphilitic changes occur in the spinal cord. The 

 feet lose their sensation of position; the gait becomes awkward. The legs 

 become paralyzed. Finally the man is helplessly bedridden but his mind 

 remains clear. 



Syphilis is often spoken of as a hereditary disease, but in reality it is not 

 hereditary. Syphilis can be transmitted to the child during pregnancy if 

 the mother has syphilis. That is not hereditary; it is contact infection. To 

 be hereditary the characteristic thus designated must be a part of the germ 

 plasm and be carried in the sperm of the male or the ovum of the female. 

 Children with syphilis are born only of mothers who themselves have the 

 disease. 



A child which acquires syphilis from its mother during the early stages 

 of her pregnancy frequently dies before birth. Syphilis is one of the great- 

 est causes of miscarriages and of stillborn children of which there are at 

 least 100,000 annually in the United States. Those children who do not die 

 soon after birth can be treated and frequently cured. 



The origin of gonorrhea is lost in antiquity. The germ which causes it 

 is even more frail and delicate than the spirochete of syphilis; under ordi- 

 nary conditions it cannot exist outside of the body for more than a few 

 minutes. No animal other than man can acquire the disease. Among adult 

 humans it is transmitted by sexual contact. Like syphilis, it strikes at infants 

 — and blinds them. 



In the female the symptoms of the infection may be so mild as to escape 

 detection, but the subsequent effects are serious. For women gonorrhea 

 ranks with cancer as a cause for operations and invalidism. 



The bacterium which causes gonorrhea belongs to that large group of 

 germs known as cocci because of their round or oval shape. It is shaped 

 like a coffee bean and two germs are usually found together. 



Gonorrhea, unlike syphilis, cannot infect the skin, but only mucous 

 membrane. The gonococci burrow into the deeper layers of tissue. An 



