464 THE TECHNIC OF COMPLEMENT-FIXATION REACTIONS 



is suspected has considerable prognostic value. A large majority of 

 children reacting positively develop symptoms of syphilis; on the other 

 hand, the majority reacting negatively remain healthy. While an 

 examination of the mother alone does not warrant an absolutely definite 

 prognosis for the child, in general it may be said that a positive reaction 

 does not constitute a favorable prognostic sign for the child. 



(6) The Wassermann reaction has also shed new light upon the 

 interpretation of Colles' law. Since the "apparently healthy mother 

 of a syphilitic child could suckle the child without being infected, whereas 

 the child is capable of giving syphilis to others, " the most logical con- 

 clusion to draw is that the mother was gradually immunized against 

 syphilis during pregnancy, whereas we now know that the majority of 

 mothers show positive serum reactions and are really latent syphilitics; 

 in not a few such instances tertiary lesions have developed at a later date. 



It is possible, however, for a syphilitic mother showing a positive 

 Wassermann reaction to give birth to a healthy child. Of 46 mothers 

 whose children showed no evidences of syphilis over a period of ob- 

 servation of three months, 17 reacted positively. Of 81 mothers giving 

 birth to syphilitic children, 61 reacted positively, and many of these 

 would naturally, in former years, have been regarded as examples of 

 Colles' immunity and considered free of syphilis. In many instances 

 the apparently healthy child of a syphilitic mother that could not be 

 infected by the mother (Profeta's law) has been shown by the Wasser- 

 mann reaction to be in reality a case of retarded congenital syphilis, 

 and that such children are not immunized, during intra-uterine life, 

 either passively or by means of pallidum toxins, against syphilis, as has 

 been so generally believed in past years. In other words, there appears 

 to be no lasting passive immunity in syphilis; it is doubtful if the toxins 

 of pallidum can pass between mother and child and immunize one or the 

 other without actual infection with the spirochetes themselves taking 

 place; that most examples of so-called immunity in syphilis in both the 

 mother (Colles' law) and the child (Profeta's law) are due to the actual 

 presence of pallidum in the tissues and are really latent infections. 



(c) In manifest untreated congenital syphilis of children one year or 

 over in age the Wassermann reaction is positive in from 97 to 100 per 

 cent, of cases. The clinical manifestations may be quite varied and 

 clinically ill denned, so that the serum reaction possesses considerable 

 diagnostic value. In most instances the reactions are quite strong, and 

 while active treatment may improve local lesions, it is very difficult, 

 indeed, to secure negative reactions. 



