490 THE TECHNIC OF COMPLEMENT-FIXATION REACTIONS 



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 defined, 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. 



(d) In congenital mental deficiency and epilepsy the Wassermann 

 reaction shows that syphilis pla3 r s a larger part in the etiology of this 

 condition than is generally supposed. A riot inconsiderable proportion 

 of cases are of infectious origin, and that infection is syphilis. In Little's 

 disease, which is regarded as due to rneningeal hemorrhage incidental 

 to injury received during labor, the serum reactions have shown that not 

 infrequently the hemorrhage has a syphilitic origin. 



THE SPECIFICITY OF THE WASSERMANN REACTION 



The highly specific nature of the syphilis reaction has been proved 



by very extensive investigations with the serums of normal persons and 



'of persons afflicted with diseases other than syphilis. Unfortunately, 



the reaction is beset by so many technical errors that a review of the 



literature, and especially of the early literature, shows results that are 



