retina, tumors (or
gummata) in the brain, paralysis etc. In fact, it spares none of the
organs of the body.

Among the most terrible results of syphilis we must mention _locomotor
ataxy_ (sclerosis of the posterior columns of the spinal cord), with
its lightning pains and paralysis of the legs and arms; also _general
paralysis of the insane_, which by causing gradual atrophy of the
brain, destroys one after the other, sensations, movements and all the
mental faculties. These two diseases, which are so common at the
present day, only occur in old syphilitics, five to twenty years, or
more often ten to fifteen years after infection, and as a rule in
persons who think they have been completely cured. Both these diseases
are fatal. Before causing death, locomotor ataxy causes intolerable
pain for several years. General paralysis first gives rise to
grandiose ideas, and after disintegrating the human personality bit by
bit, ends by transforming the individual into a being much inferior to
animals, and of an aspect as miserable as it is repulsive. A general
paralytic in his last stage is little more than a vegetating ruin, in
whom the nervous activities are decomposed little by little, after the
gradual disappearance of all the mental faculties. This is the result
of slow atrophy of the brain and gradual destruction of its
microscopic elements, or _neurones_.

The early stages of syphilis may easily pass unnoticed owing to their
partly latent and completely painless character. Small eruptions may
be mistaken for other affections, and mercurial treatment generally
disperses the symptoms of _primary_ and _secondary_ syphilis. But
syphilitics who are apparently cured are never safe from being
attacked, after perhaps many years, with locomotor ataxy, general
paralysis or the _tertiary_ or _quaternary_ manifestations of
syphilis, such as disease of the bones, internal organs, eyes, brain,
etc. The sores of the first two or three years of syphilis are
contagious but painless, and hence do not prevent coitus when they
occur in the genitals. After three years syphilis becomes less
contagious, but there is no definite time limit and cases have been
recorded in which contagious lesions occurred ten or fifteen years
after the onset of the disease.

A syphilitic man may transmit the disease to his children without
infecting his wife, and these children may die before birth or may be
born with congenital syphilis. This is due to the s