Chapter Thirty[ToC]
MARRIAGE AND SYPHILIS
Rules for Permitting a Syphilitic Patient to Marry—Rules More Severe in Cases Where Children Are Desired—Where Both Partners Are Syphilitic—Danger of Paresis in Some Syphilitic Patients—A Case in the Author's Practice.
The problem of the syphilitic differs from the problem of the exgonorrheal patient. When a gonorrheal patient is cured, so far as infectivity is concerned, and is not sterile, there is no apprehension as to the offspring. Gonorrhea is not hereditary, and the child of a gonorrheal patient does not differ from the child of a nongonorrheal person. In the case of syphilis, it is different. The patient may be safe so far as infecting the partner is concerned, but yet there may be danger for the offspring.
The rules for permitting a man or a woman who once had syphilis to marry, therefore, are different from those applied to the gonorrheal patient. Here are the rules:
1. I would make it an invariable rule that no syphilitic patient should marry or should be permitted to marry before five years have elapsed from the day of infection. But the period of time alone is not sufficient; other conditions must be met before we may give a syphilitic patient permission to marry.
2. The man or the woman must have received thorough systematic treatment for at least three years, either constantly or off and on, according to the physician's judgment.