APPLICATIONS OF BACTERIOLOGY 259 



full activity or rather only that the individual has been affected 

 at a more or less distant period, and that the infection is now 

 latent. According to certain observers, it is always the sign of 

 active infection, although in a part of the body where the 

 lesions are not perceptible, the proof being that specific treat- 

 ment makes the reaction disappear, whereas it reappears 

 during relapses or recurrences of the disease. The experience 

 hitherto with " 606 " does not apparently authorize such a 

 simple interpretation, however. 



In many cases the diagnosis of syphilis is only too easy j the 

 lesions visible and active are sufficient proof. But humanity 

 suffers from many ills which are more or less distant con- 

 sequences of an attack of syphilis, neglected, forgotten, or 

 even unsuspected. Since syphilis is a curable disease the value of 

 Wassermann's reaction in the diagnosis of these obscure cases 

 is obvious : lesions of the liver, of the heart, of the aorta, and 

 failure of the sight may all by its means be assigned to their 

 true cause and yield to the specific treatment. An old clinical 

 law holds that the mother of a syphilitic infant, without being 

 herself infected, is immune to infection from her child, and 

 thus may nurse it without danger ; in reality, it turns out, she is 

 infected : the serum reaction proves it. A Dresden physician, 

 Rietschel, has thus diagnosed syphilis in 10 per cent, of wet 

 nurses apparently healthy, and the confirmation was obtained 

 when it was found that the children of these women eventually 

 showed signs of syphilis. 



Syphilis unsuspected or without symptoms is a disease less 

 rare than is generally thought, and Wassermann's reaction 

 furnishes us with an additional weapon against this formidable 

 enemy. 



Clinical medicine has long maintained the syphilitic origin 

 of general paralysis of the insane, and of locomotor ataxy. 

 The sero-diagnosis brings a striking proof of this. Not only 

 the serum but the cerebro-spinal fluid of general paralytics 

 furnishes a positive reaction in 88 per cent, of all cases, and in 

 95 per cent, of advanced cases. In locomotor ataxy the per- 

 centage is not so high. 



S 2 



