BACILLUS OF SYPHILIS. 215 



uncommon in syphilis, as the syphilis germ (?) is exceedingly 

 tenacious. 



Colles is authority for the statement that a mother giving 

 birth to a child which inherited syphilis from the father, is 

 herself rendered immune. The bacilli apparently do not pass 

 from the foetus to the mother, but the toxins do, and the 

 immunity is conferred in that way. Such a mother may also 

 nurse her infant without contracting the disease, although a 

 wet-nurse would certainly become syphilitic from the same 

 source. It is held by some authorities that the immunity of 

 the mother is not due to the toxin which has been transmitted 

 to her from the child, but that she may herself have been 

 inoculated with syphilis by the husband. All attempts to 

 produce immunity in non-syphilitics by injection of the serum 

 of syphilitics have failed. 



Heredity : The question of the heredity of syphilis presents 

 some interesting points which may now be discussed profit- 

 ably. It is a well-known fact that the children of syphilitics 

 are either born with evidences of syphilis ; or they do not 

 manifest any syphilitic taint at birth, but show evidences of 

 the disease later on. It is claimed that the disease is trans- 

 mitted from the father through the spermatozoa. Experi- 

 ments tending to prove this assertion have been unsuccessful, 

 but clinically there is sufficient evidence at hand to warrant 

 the statement that syphilitic fathers propagate syphilitic 

 children, the mothers escaping infection. On the other hand, 

 it is held that in the absence of syphilis in the mother the 

 child will remain free from syphilis. The mother may not 

 have had any evidences of the primary o^r secondary lesions, 

 but well-marked tertiary symptoms appear later on, prov- 

 ing that the mother at the time of birth of the child really 

 was a syphilitic, and that her healthy condition was apparent 

 only. 



The opinions of eminent syphilographers are divided about 

 equally on these propositions ; but if the second is true, the 

 first is unquestionably untenable. Furthermore, the children 

 of a syphilitic mother are always syphilitic even when syphi- 

 lis in the father can be ruled out absolutely. The infection 

 is transmitted through the ovum. 



