. ACQUIRED DIATHESIS 155 



no immediate structural changes in the cells and tissues, but we 

 have evidence that the protoplasm of various tissues is affected, 

 although the results of the disturbance may only show them- 

 selves after long years. Indeed, the only explanation we can 

 give of many remote effects of syphilis is this, that during the 

 active period of the disease there has been a change wrought 

 in the constitution of the cells of sundry tissues, slight and 

 subtle, it may be, but sufficient to lead to premature exhaustion 

 of the idioplasm of those cells. It would be absurd to argue 

 that the immature germ cells lie absolutely dormant in the 

 organism. They need nourishment ; they assimilate ; they 

 are thus also apt to absorb circulating toxines, and their idio- 

 plasm must be affected in this act. Hence, while syphilis as 

 such is not inherited, the toxines of the disease must be regarded 

 as prone to set up molecular disturbances in the germinal idio- 

 plasm, and the offspring may show, not syphilitic lesions, but 

 parasyphilitic lesions — various forms of arrested and imperfect 

 development of different tissues due to the intoxication, and 

 therewith modification of the germ plasm while still a portion 

 of the parental organism. 



Parental intoxication, therefore, is seen to be capable of 

 directly affecting the germ cells, and if there is no direct trans- 

 mission of the effects of such intoxication, certainly there are 

 indirect effects. In demonstrating the truth of this statement, 

 it must be freely admitted that conjugation and intra-uterine 

 existence introduce grave complications. In fertilization it is 

 obvious that the idioplasm of the sound parent may largely 

 neutralise the defective constitution of that of the diseased 

 parent, while we have constantly to guard against ascribing to 

 defects in the germ plasm conditions acquired during intra- 

 uterine life. If the mother is the subject of any toxic state (to 

 use the broadest possible phrase), not merely may the ovum be 

 directly affected prior to fertilization, but in the course of foetal 

 existence the organism of the offspring, deriving its nutrition 

 as it does from the maternal blood, is liable to be affected and 

 disturbed by circulating toxic substances, and the development 

 of the different tissues to be correspondingly influenced. The 

 only conditions we can safely study are those in which the father 

 is the subject of disease or intoxication, the mother exempt. 

 Nor is it easy in cases of infectious disease, or even in frank 



