ANTE-NATAL HYGIENE: DISCUSSION 399 



population, and they had advocated measures to be taken 

 to investigate, and to prevent, and that was also the case 

 in Canada. He was very pleased indeed to hear the able 

 speech of Dr. MacMurchy on the subject, and it showed 

 that their Colonies at any rate were showing them the way 

 on this subject. With regard to the question asked in 

 respect of the Wassermann reaction. Of course he had 

 not done it on many children, but it seemed to be thought 

 that people would object to the test being done. He could 

 hardly believe that. He had had women come to him and 

 ask to have the test done on themselves and their children 

 when their husband had been ill with general paralysis in 

 an asylum. They had said, " We know what the cause of 

 the disease is; can you tell us whether we or our children 

 are going to suffer from it? " They had been sent to the 

 hospital and tests made. Very often it was found the 

 children were infected, and that meant that the mother had 

 been infected. If they knew that they could treat them. 

 He asked if that was not rational. There was a very able 

 man, Professor Dean, of Sheffield, who was interested with 

 him in that subject, arid they applied to the Metropolitan 

 Asylums Board to be permitted to make an investigation 

 of all the children in the asylums who it was suspected 

 might suffer from the disease, in order that if there were 

 other members of the family they might be allowed to warn 

 them and give the necessary information. They were told 

 that it could not be done because the friends might object. 

 To show how absurd that was, just at that time he had 

 two children in the hospital suffering from general paralysis. 

 He said to the mothers, " Have you ever been ill? " and 

 the answer was that they had never had a day's illness in 

 their lives, but they had had miscarriages and abortions. 

 He asked them if they minded his testing their blood and 

 that of their children, and they agreed willingly. Although 

 many years had elapsed he found a marked reaction. That 

 was to say, they were infected although they knew nothing 

 about it. He could easily multiply such cases. He quite 

 recognized what Dr. Pritchard had said as to the difficulty 

 of getting the blood of very young children, and the plan 

 they adopted was usually aspiration, which did not give 

 much pain; and even quite young infants could be tested in 

 that way. With regard to the method of the test and its 

 usefulness he could speak specially in relation to the disease 

 of general paralysis because they had so many cases. There 

 they were able to diagnose the disease in 98 per cent, of 

 cases by the blood, and often and often they had been able 

 to say that a man had got general paralysis from the test 



