CAN RABBITS BE INFECTED WITH SYPHILIS DIRECTLY FROM THE BLOODS OF GENERAL PARETICS?

Abstract

Accepting as postulates that syphilis is a chronic infectious disease and that we have no means of definitely knowing its termination during the life of the infected individual, I proposed in a recent communication¹the theory of relative tolerance as opposed to that of latency. It seemed to me that a period or periods of relative tolerance for the virus, meaning thereby an excellent, a fair, or a poor resistance of the whole or a part of the organism was a better conception, one more in accord with clinical experience, the natural history of the disease and the results of treatment than that of latency. Certainly, the modern laboratory aids and clinical refinements now utilized in recognition of the syphilitic justify the assumption of many older and modern investigators that somewhere in the tissues of living individuals thecontagium vivumexists and justify the hope that means may be