214 ORGANISMS RESEMBLING BACILLUS TUBERCULOSIS. 



organism is motile and forms spores. Later it changes its 

 form to a coccus, or branched forms, or it may resemble a 

 mould. It stains readily with the anilin dyes and with 

 Gram's, and is decolorized by the mineral acids. 



Inoculation experiments in animals produced abortion in 

 pregnant rabbits, extragenital primary nodular lesions on the 

 ears, secondary ulcers and tumor formations, and irregular 

 lesions. 



A white diplococcus has also been found and successfully 

 cultivated on agar and potato from the blood of syphilitics. 

 Perhaps this is one of the variations of Van Niesen's bacil- 

 lus. 



Infection: Infection always occurs by contact with the 

 products of syphilitic lesions or the blood of syphilitics. An 

 abrasion is necessary before infection occurs. Sexual inter- 

 course is the most frequent method of infection, although the 

 kissing and nursing of a syphilitic infant, the handling of 

 infected instruments and other objects, the depraved habit of 

 tongue-sucking, and inoculation of the fingers of physicians 

 and midwives (extragenital chancres) by coming in contact 

 with the syphilitic virus, must not be overlooked as equally 

 dangerous, and by no means infrequent, methods by which 

 infection is conveyed. 



The primary lesion is found most frequently on the genitals, 

 and less often on the lips, tongue, tonsils, nipples, fingers, etc. 

 In from three to six weeks the syphilitic virus is disseminated 

 throughout the entire body, and then the so-called secondaries 

 appear. Some time afterward these are followed by the lesions 

 or manifestations of the tertiary stage. 



In hereditary syphilis the portal of entrance is the blood, 

 and here the primary lesion is wanting, the secondaries 

 inaugurating the attack. Whatever the exciting cause of 

 syphilis may be, it is endowed with an indefinite term of life, 

 and the disease is transmissible throughout this entire period. 



Immunity : Syphilis is the one disease to which all persons, 

 all races, and all nationalities are susceptible. There is no 

 natural immunity to syphilis, but one attack usually confers 

 immunity against another, and a second attack is a rarity. 

 Second attacks are usually relapses, which are not at all 



