TREPONEMA PALLIDUM 159 



TREPONEMA PALLIDUM. 



Syphilis is one of the venereal diseases. It is chiefly 

 acquired by cohabitation, but may also be contracted 

 by nurses and physicians in their professional relations 

 with patients. It is a chronic infectious disease 

 characterized by three stages, the first a primary, 

 acute, active, self-limited ulceration, with some regional 

 lymph-gland swellings; second, a period in which 

 various eruptions appear on the skin and mucous 

 membranes (mucous patches) with slowly progressive 

 changes in some of the internal organs, and third, a 

 last stage of soft tumor formation (gumma), with fibrous 

 affections of the organs and degenerations of the 

 nervous system. 



It is caused by a spiral organism called the Spiro- 

 cheta pallida or Treponema pallidum. This bacterium 

 enters small cracks or wounds, penetrates to the 

 deeper layers, invades the lymph channels, and pro- 

 duces the primary sore, the hard chancre. Even 

 before this is fully developed, the spirochetse have 

 journeyed to the neighboring lymph glands, where an 

 enlargement results. They then invade both the lymph 

 routes and the blood and rapidly infest all bodily 

 tissues. They stimulate the small round cells of blood 

 and tissue to multiply even up to fibrous tissue forma- 

 tion, and they cause degeneration of the functionating 

 structures. Just how they make the gumma is only 

 conjectured. All their effects, however, are probably 

 due to the toxins set free upon their death and dis- 

 integration. The spirochetse remain in the body as 

 long as the patient lives, if untreated. They leave the 



