CHAPTER XI. 



SYPHILIS. 



SYPHILIS cannot rightly be called an hereditary disease, 

 for the reason that it is not handed down from parent 

 to child through many generations, nor does it ever 

 skip a generation to appear in that following. Indeed, 

 it is still doubtful whether syphilis as syphilis ever 

 reaches the third generation. But although the disease 

 is seldom or never transmitted as syphilis beyond 

 the children of the infected parent, it is often the 

 starting-point of degenerate conditions which are 

 transmitted through many generations, and cause 

 grave deterioration in the family stock. On this 

 ground, then, it deserves brief consideration in these 

 pages. 



Syphilis is a disease which affects the whole system. 

 No tissue or organ is safe from its attack. When 

 severe, and still more surely when engrafted upon a 

 scrofulous, neurotic, or otherwise already degenerate 

 constitution, this disease so impoverishes the system, 

 robs the tissues and organs of their vitality, that a 

 condition allied to the scrofulous diathesis is estab- 

 lished. This condition is transmitted to the offspring 



