CHAPTER XXXIII 

 SYPHILIS 



Treponema (Spiroch^ta) Pallidum (Schaudinn and Hoffmann) 



General Characteristics.- — A non-chromogenic, non-aerogenic, anaerobic, 

 minute, slender, closely coiled, flexible, motile, flagellated, non-sporogenous, 

 non-liquefying, spiral organism, cultivable upon specially prepared media, patho- 

 genic for man and certain of the lower animals, staining by certain methods only 

 and not by Gram's method. 



Although syphilis has been well known for centuries, its specific 

 cause has but recently been discovered. The supposition that the 

 disease could not be successfully communicated to any of the 

 lower animals was supposed to explain the delay, but has not proved 

 to be the case, for in spite of the discovery of Metschnikoff and 

 Roux* that chimpanzees could be successfully inoculated with virus 

 from a human lesion, the confirmation of their work by Lassarf and 

 others, and the additional discovery of Metschnikoff and Roux,t 

 that it is also possible to infect macaques with syphilis, the specific 

 organism was, after all, discovered for the first time in matter 

 secured from human lesions. 



It has long been known that preputial smegma and various 

 ulcerative lesions of the generative organs contain certain spiral or- 

 ganisms. Bordet studied them with care, expecting to prove that 

 they were concerned with the etiology of syphilis, but it remained 

 for Schaudinn and Hoffmann§ to discover the specific micro- 

 organism. They point out that there are two separate species of 

 spiral organisms commonly found in ulcerative lesions of the 

 genitalia. One called by them Spirochaeta refringens is of common 

 occurrence, the other, called Spirochaeta paUida, later, and more 

 correctly, Treponema pallidum, is found only in syphilitic lesions— 

 and is, therefore, their probable cause. The discovery of Tre- 

 ponema pallidum by Schaudinn and Hoffmann was quickly con- 

 firmed by Metschnikoff.il It is now universally accepted as the 

 cause of syphilis. 



Morphology.— The organism is a slender, flexible, closely coiled 

 spiral, usually showing from eight to ten uniform undulations, but 

 occasionally being so short as to show only two or three, or so long 

 as to show as many as twenty. 



* "Ann. de I'Inst. Pasteur," Dec, 1903, p. 8oq. 

 t "Berliner klin. Wochenschrift," 1903, p. 1189. 

 t "Annales de I'Inst. Pasteur," Jan., 1904. 

 § " Deutsche med. Wochenschrift," May 4, 1905. 

 I| "Bull. Acad, de med. de Paris," May 16, 1905. 

 718 



