84 THE INTERNAL SECRETIONS—1920 
sermann states that this first period may be short; 
shorter than was believed in the time when the sec- 
ondary syphilitic symptoms were considered as the first 
symptoms of a general infection. 
During the last year a new reaction has been largely 
discussed, especially in German and Swiss literature— 
the reaction of Sachs-Georgi. I cannot take space to 
give any details here about this reaction. The general 
opinion is that in most cases this reaction parallels the 
Wasserman test. It may, however, be observed in the 
serum some time before the Wassermann test is posi- 
tive, and would thus be a still earlier symptom of a 
generalization of the luetic infection. The short pre- 
Wassermann period is thus still too long, and the period 
in which abortive treatment is effective still shorter 
than Wassermann believed. The reaction of Sachs- 
Georgi has not been used in my experiments, as it was 
not invented at the time I was doing this work. 
The first question we have to ask is: How long is 
this pre-Wassermann period? The literature on this 
subject is enormous. 
Boas (32), gives this table: 
No. of weeks after infection Total cases 
A aa kd Gs een ee ais Eee ee 8 
Dis 5 sine ele eRe ate ae ene 4 
Gs dsc nekdetalonaaae oe 5 
Pe er ee ea ene 5 
SS. forse o Guards Fahd etiara Seta ee 10 
OE cle wccne to a eau eee inks ee 5 
De cceviave eis 4h hs eats Ieteeee Cee eee: 1 
Bruck and Stern (39), state that in rare cases the 
Wassermann test may be positive before the primary 
induration is observed. In the already quoted report of 
the Special Committee upon the standardization of 
pathological methods (34), I found one case where ten 
days after infection the Wassermann test was found 
positive by three different workers. Craig (40), ob- 
