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Before the infection has spread beyond the first sore, however, the Wassermann test is negative, and this fact makes it of little value in recognizing early primary lesions. In about 20 to 30 per cent of syphilitic individuals the test returns to negative after the active secondary stage is passed. This does not necessarily mean that the person is recovering.
Assuredly this is good as far as it goes, but it is not so reliable as to deserve incorporation into law as sole sufficient evidence of the absence of syphilis, as has been done in one state. From what has been said, it is plain that a single negative Wassermann is no proof of the absence of syphilis.
The test should be made by a specialist of recognized standing, and this term does not include many of the commercial laboratories which spring up like mushrooms in these days of laboratory methods. +The Recognition of Syphilis by the Blood Test.+ When the Wassermann test shows the presence of syphilis, we speak of it as "positive."
It is of little use to say that a Wassermann and a medical examination should be made before marriage, when the damage may be done long before that point is reached. +Medical Examination for Syphilis before Marriage.+ How shall we recognize syphilis in a candidate for marriage? The prevailing idea is to demand a negative Wassermann test.
Even while we concede the value of generations of experience with syphilis in determining the probable risk of infection, it is a duty to investigate thoroughly by the modern methods, such as the Wassermann blood test, the condition of all members of a family in which syphilis has appeared.
Ernst von Wolzogen, the discoverer of Wassermann, and a critic who has perhaps contributed to an over-estimate of him, declares that this author, who stood, especially at first, under the influence of the most Asiatic of all the Russian novelists, Dostojewski, is the sole Oriental among the present generation of literary Jews.
#Serum Diagnosis Wassermann Reaction.# Wassermann found that if an extract of syphilitic liver rich in spirochætes is mixed with the serum from a syphilitic patient, a large amount of complement is fixed. The application of the test is highly complicated and can only be carried out by an expert pathologist. For the purpose he is supplied with from 5 c.c. to 10
This sort of medical detective work was first applied to syphilis successfully by Wassermann, Neisser, and Bruck in 1904, and for that reason the test for these antibodies in the blood in syphilis is called the Wassermann reaction.
But infallibility is a rare thing in medicine, and must be replaced in most cases by skilful interpretation of a test based on a knowledge of the sources of error. We understand pretty clearly now that the Wassermann test is only one of the signs of syphilis and that it has quite well-understood limitations.
Wassermann Brothers' stock-brokering office, which closes at three hummed just as the "office" had done the evening before and with the very same bees, although Felix did not recognize them.
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