SYPHILIS AND YAWS 67 



Neisser 1 has recently summed up the conclusions he has come to 

 in the experimental and practical aspects of recent work on syphilis : 



1. The spironema is useful in diagnosis. 



2. It is impossible to introduce the virus of syphilis except by 

 the formation of a hard chancre. 



3. That the spironema has not so far been found in tertiary 

 lesions, but the latter, as well as primary and secondary lesions, are 

 contagious, except when they are degenerated. 



4. In hereditary syphilis even the nasal mucus is infectious. 



5. Neisser has not been able to confirm MetchnikofFs statements 

 as to the destruction of the virus of syphilis by strong mercurial oint- 

 ment, if applied between one and eighteen hours after inoculation. 



6. The rarity of second attacks is probably to be explained by 

 persistence of disease. 



7. No attenuated virus has been found ; either the virus produced 

 a chancre, or it was dead and inert. 



MetchnikofP referring to Neisser's results finds that he did not 

 use a sufficiently strong ointment : from 25 to 30 per cent, of calomel 

 in lanolin is required. Subcutaneous injection of atoxyl proved 

 efficacious in apes as long as fifteen days after inoculation. 



Yaws. 



Yaws, or Frambcesia tropica, is a disease which so closely resembles 

 syphilis that the question of their identity has often been discussed. 

 Their likeness has been farther extended by Aldo Castellani, 3 who, 

 in eleven out of fourteen cases, found organisms which closely 

 resemble the Spironema luis. Castellani thinks that yaws is distinct 

 from syphilis, and proposes the name Spirochceta pertenuis for the 

 parasite in yaws. MacLennan has confirmed Castellani's discovery. 

 Castellani found also in the blood of patients suffering from yaws 

 round and oval bodies, which he regards as probably a develop- 

 mental stage of a protozoon. Experimentally, yaws does not 

 protect an animal against syphilis. 



1 Neisser, ' Bulletin de la Soc. Franc,, de Prophylaxie Sanitaire et Morale,' 

 quoted by J. E. Lane, Practitioner, October, 1907. 



2 Metchnikoff, Ann. de VInst. Pasteur, October, 1907. 



3 Aldo Castellani, Brit. Med.Journ., November 18, 1905, and November 23, 

 1907. 



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