Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


A syphilitic might cough into the air with little risk, since the germs would die before they could find a favorable place to infect. But a syphilitic who coughs directly into one's face with a mouth full of spirochetes multiplies the risk considerably. The public towel is certainly dangerous almost as much so as the common drinking cup.

Now it developed that streets were sewers, battlegrounds, lairs, abattoirs, cesspools, lazarettes, midways of deformity and brawling markets where nightmares and spirochetes were sold. The city had not less than three dimensions. He had not been fully prepared for the implications of this, either. Existence in three dimensions does not necessarily mean three-dimensional vision.

+The Action of Salvarsan.+ It will be recalled that Ehrlich planned salvarsan to kill the germs of syphilis, just as quinin kills the germs of malaria. It was intended that when the drug entered the blood it should be carried to every part of the body, and fastening itself on the spirochetes, kill them without hurting the body.

It is thought by some that these delayed eruptions represent infections at birth. Hereditarily syphilitic children are filled with the spirochetes, the germs of the disease. They are in every tissue and organ; the child is literally riddled with them. In spite of this it may for a time seem well. The typical syphilitic child, however, is thin, weak, and wasted.

The man in whom the few remaining germs are confined largely to the skin is fortunate. The unfortunates are those who, with the spirochetes in their artery walls, heart muscle, brain, and spinal cord, develop the destructive arterial and nervous changes which lead to the crippling of life at its root and premature death.

+Fate of the Germs.+ The fate of all these vast numbers of syphilitic germs, distributed over the whole body at the height of the disease, is one of the most remarkable imaginable. As the acute secondary stage passes, whether the patient is treated or not, by far the larger number of the spirochetes in the body is destroyed by the body's own power of resistance.

Moreover, even though these objects remain moist, the spirochetes are likely to die out within six or seven hours, and may lose their infectiousness before this. Smooth, non-absorbent surfaces, especially of metal, are unfavorable for the germ. Wash-basins, dishes, silverware, and toilet articles are usually satisfactorily disinfected by hot soapsuds, followed by drying.