| Abstrakt: |
THE PATHOLOGIC response in the visceral, central nervous and cardiovascular systems to Treponema pallidum leads to innumerable clinical phenomena, which so closely simulate other conditions that they constitute challenging problems in differential diagnosis. This fact has long been recognized by clinicians and led to Osler's famous dictum: "Know syphilis and the whole of medicine is open unto you."Less well recognized and little recorded are the many paradoxic and unexplainable manifestations of syphilis, especially the responses of the infecting organism provoked in certain tissues, contrasted with apparent tissue immunity elsewhere.The obscure and paradoxic character of syphilis begins immediately with the infecting organism. Belatedly discovered, after innumerable unsuccessful researches extending over twenty-five years, the nature of this organism and its life history are still unsolved problems. Such knowledge as has been gained through experimentation with animals and through culture has shed little or no light on the place of the |
