SUMMARY
It is highly probable that all the mothers of syphilitic children have been infected with syphilis. Of eighty-five mothers of syphilitic children 86 per cent. gave positive Wassermann reactions. All of the remaining cases but six gave a history of infection or treatment, or both. Five of these six patients were examined at least ten years after the birth of their last syphilitic children and the infection is probably dying out.
Eighty-seven per cent. of the mothers deny all knowledge of the infection. The mothers are for the most part infected during the latent stage of the father.
Of 331 pregnancies in 100 families, 30 per cent. were abortions, 9 per cent. stillbirths, 61 per cent. living births. Of the living births 24 per cent. had died. Of those living 80 per cent. had syphilis.
Of the total pregnancies 90 per cent. were presumably syphilitic and although 10 per cent., seem free from syphilis, there is no proof that they all are. The total syphilis in these families amounts to 93 per cent. of the entire family.
For the most part our families followed Kassowitz’s rule; i.e., decreasing grades of infection in the children.
In case of syphilitic mothers bearing non-syphilitic children, it is probable that the infection in the mother is localized in places where it is not readily transmitted.
The idea that there are different strains of spirochetes receives some support from these families.
Transmission to the third generation, though not proved, is distinctly an occasional probability.
OBSTETRICS. A Text-book for the Use of Students and Practitioners. Whitridge Williams, Professor of Obstetrics Johns Hopkins University. Obstetrician-in-Chief to the Johns Hopkins Hospital; Gynecologist to Union Protestant Infirmary, Baltimore, Md. D. Appleton and Co., 1912.