SYPHILIS 8g 



secretion, you may often find organisms resembling the gono- 

 coccus in some points, but not in all. These yield one of the 

 most troublesome problems that the clinical bacteriologist has 

 to face. 



SYPHILIS 



It is now abundantly proved that the Spirochcsta (or Treponema) 

 pallida of Schaudinn is the actual cause of syphilis, and the 

 diagnosis of this disease by the recognition of the causative agent 

 is now practicable in some cases. The organism is a spirochaete, 

 in shape resembling a spirillum, but probably of animal nature 

 [i.e., a protozoon). It is very small, or rather very narrow, and 

 stains with great difficulty: it is this fact which has led to its having 

 been overlooked previously. In length it is about equal to the 

 diameter of a red corpuscle, either more or less ; it is made up of 

 about eight or ten close-set curves, and it has sharp ends. These 

 facts are very important, for there are numerous spirochaetes some- 

 what similar in appearance, which are frequently found in ulcers 

 of all sorts, in the mouth, etc., and which have no doubt been 

 frequently mistaken for Schaudinn's organism (Spirochata pallida). 

 The 'main difference is that in the other common spirochaetes (one 

 of which, the commonest, is called 5. refringens, and is closely 

 allied to, or identical with, that of Vincent) the curves are wider. 

 For example, if we found two spirochaetes exactly as long as a 

 red corpuscle is wide, and in one there were eight complete curves 

 and in the latter only three or four, the former would probably be 

 pallida, the latter refringens (Plate V.). The former is also said 

 to look stiffer and to be less easily bent. The staining reactions are 

 different in the two cases, refringens being stained, though not 

 deeply, with borax-methylene blue or dilute carbol fuchsin, whilst 

 the latter is not. 



Method.— The examination may be carried out on scrapings 

 from a supposed chancre, secondary ulcer, condyloma, etc. ; on 

 juice obtained from an enlarged lymphatic gland by puncture with 

 a hypodermic needle ; on the blood expressed from a secondary 

 rash after puncture of the skin, or, according to some authors, in 

 fluid from a blister raised on or near a lesion of such a rash. It 

 appears to be especially abundant in the pemphigoid rashes of 

 hereditary syphilis. It is very rarely found in gummata or in 

 any tertiary lesion. 



Spread the material thus obtained in a very thin layer on a 



