e. An
attempt to "burn it out" with caustic or otherwise, which is the first
impulse of the layman with a half-way knowledge and even of some
doctors, promptly makes impossible a real decision as to whether or not
syphilis is present. Even a salve, a wash, or a powder may spoil the
best efforts to find out what the matter is. A patient seeking advice
should go to his doctor _at once_, and absolutely _untreated_. Then,
again, irritating treatment applied unwisely to even a harmless sore may
make a mere chafe look like a hard chancre, and result in the patient's
being treated for months or longer for syphilis. Nowadays our first
effort after studying the appearance of the suspected lesion is to try
to find the germs, with the dark-field microscope or a stain. Having
found them, the question is largely settled, although we also take a
blood test. If we fail to find the germs, it is no proof that syphilis
is absent, and we reexamine and take blood tests at intervals for some
months to come, to be sure that the infection has not escaped our
vigilance, as it sometimes does if we relax our precautions. In
recognizing syphilis, the wise layman is the one who knows he does not
know. The clever one who is familiar with everything "they say" about
the disease, and has read about the matter in medical books into the
bargain, is the best sort of target for trouble. Such men are about as
well armed as the man who attacks a lion with a toothpick. He may stop
him with his eye, but it is a safer bet he will be eaten.

+Enlargement of Neighboring Glands.+--Nearly every one is familiar with
the kernels or knots that can be felt in the neck, often after
tonsillitis, or with eruptions in the scalp. These are lymph-glands,
which are numerous in different parts of the body, and their duty is,
among other things, to help fight off any infection which tries to get
beyond the point at which it started. The lymph-glands in the
neighborhood of the chancre, on whatever part of the body it is
situated, take an early part in the fight against syphilis. If, for
example, the chancre is on the genitals, the glands in the groin will be
the first ones affected. If it is on the lip, the neck glands become
swollen. The affected glands actually contain the germs which have made
their way to them through lymph channels under the skin. When the glands
begin to swell, the critical period of limitation of the disease to the
starting-point will soon be over and t