We may rejoice that part of the syphilitic insanity has passed away and that "the popular conception," as Becker calls it, without mentioning that his profession taught this fallacy to the public, "that a child from a syphilitic parent is apt to have hereditary mental or other defects, is unfounded."

   It is now generally agreed that "the father of the child may be syphilitic, but if the disease has not been transmitted to the mother the child will be born free of infection." It is agreed that the child is "infected" while in the womb, by germs brought to it by the mother's blood. It is therefore called "maternal syphilis," or "prenatal syphilis." Thus Eve, again, and not Adam gets us kicked out of the Paradise of Eden.

   Medical authorities agree that "syphilis" "attacks" the unborn child in the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy. Indeed they tell us that because the mother does not transmit "syphilis" to her baby until the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy, "it is possible to prevent transmission by treating the mother before she infects the child." Such treatment, if continued until the birth of the child will assure the baby "freedom from syphilis in nine cases out of ten."

   This is a rather far-fetched idea. The "germs of syphilis" are said to be carried to the developing baby by the mother's blood, and there is no reason why they cannot be carried there as soon as circulatory connections are established between the mother and the embryo. "Infection," if it can occur at all, could occur at any time. It would be interesting to know just how they discovered that it never occurs before the fourth month.

   Intra-uterine "syphilitic infection" is blamed for a large part of the still-births that occur every year. Medical Authorities tell us that the "time of the attack," is the important factor in determining whether the child will be born dead or alive. "If the disease infects the child" before the middle period of pregnancy, it is likely to be bom dead; if at a later period, the child has a better chance of being bom alive. However, they tell us that "if the baby is bom alive, there is strong probability that it will die within a year."

   The tendency of "syphilis" to cause death in the new born "becomes less as the mother's infection grows older. The second pregnancy may result in a miscarriage at a later date," says Becker, "or the child may be born dead at full term. The next pregnancy may result in a living child with the disease. Subsequent children may or may not be infected. The tendency of the disease to infect the child becomes less and less, until a child may be bom without syphilis. The tendency towards spontaneous cure in women, especially those who are bearing children, creates a lessened tendency to infection of the child."

   Dr. Parran agrees with this saying: "Dangerous as it is to the child, pregnancy exerts a beneficial effect upon the mother's syphilitic infection. Thereafter it runs a milder course, tending to latency, with fewer late complications. *** A woman with syphilis may infect her unborn child. If in the early stage of the disease and untreated, she almost certainly will do so. The result is an abortion, a still-birth, or a living child with congenital syphilis. All three results may follow in successive pregnancies. *** On the average, untreated syphilis in a woman produces a disastrous outcome in 9 out of 10 pregnancies."

   If these things are true, a better treatment for "syphilis" in women than the accepted drug treatment, one that will prove far less damaging, would be a rapid series of pregnancies.

   The prenatally "infected" child may be born apparently normal. There may be no "signs of the disease," and it later "develops its unmistakable characteristics," whatever characteristics it has that are unmistakable. There are "no primary sores to reveal the presence of the disease," for "at the very onset the germs are already attacking every vital organ." It seems that none of the mother's increasing resistance reaches the child. "When definite signs finally appear, they are those of secondary syphilis," — hives, "nettle rash," or other skin eruptions due to an "upset" stomach. At times the child may "be born with infectious lesions."

   In a few weeks, "usually before the fourth month of postnatal life," the child becomes ill. It may "at first be restless" (from over-feeding), "then develop snuffles" (also from overfeeding), "perhaps a skin rash (from indigestion), and "other changes," from the same causes. "The blood test is positive" — sometimes.

   Prenatal "syphilis is divided into "early" and "late," as is "acquired syphilis." (The discriminating reader will recognize that prenatal "syphilis" is also "acquired.") In time the "secondary signs" vanish and "prenatal syphilis enters the third stage." Congenital heart disease, paresis, locomotor ataxia, blindness, etc., "are as fatal and severe in their attacks upon the child as are these varieties of acquired syphilis upon the adult." Dr. Becker says "the child thus diseased may have moderate nutrition and stunted growth. He or she is pale, undersized, and shows a lack of resistance." All these conditions are more rationally explained by referring them to malnutrition from its various causes than by assuming that they are due to a disease called "syphilis."

   At the age of ten a girl began slowly to go blind. Her father took her to an eye specialist, who "immediately diagnosed her condition as keratitis caused by syphilis." The father admitted having had a sore twelve years before which was burned off by a doctor and he had never given more thought to it. The father had "infected" his wife in the "non-infectious stage," and now his daughter was going blind.

   Keratitis is inflammation of the cornea and may be caused by many things. Medical dogma has it that it is due to "syphilis." Gummatous sclerosis of the internal ear "is also said to "cause deafness." Parran tells us that "juvenile paresis is a relatively rare but terrible result of congenital (prenatal) syphilis.'"

   Parran also says: "The relation of congenital syphilis to feeblemindedness is difficult to describe. Some studies show little difference in the syphilis rate among feebleminded and normal children.'"

   It is as difficult to tell whether or not a baby has "syphilis" as it is to tell that an adult has it. Parran says: "Like acquired syphilis, congenital symptoms are so diverse that not all are recognized. Some congenitals go through life with few symptoms. *** The mother's Wassermann may be negative; also the blood from the umbilical cord, or from the baby's veins. The placenta may appear normal, even by microscopic examination. The X-ray may show nothing in the long-bones. Yet some months or even years later the child may show signs of congenital syphilis."