cavities. The deeper sub-mucous tissues of the uterus and the male
genito-urinary tracts are also frequently involved, it being sometimes
impossible to eradicate it from these deeper retreats. From these deeper
tissues it is more commonly taken up by the circulation and deposited in
distant parts, frequently in the joints. When it becomes thus
systematically disseminated, the so-called secondary or metastatic lesions
are almost as numerous, though not as virulent, as syphilitic infection.
Recent pathological researchers have found that occasionally the
gonococcus becomes the causative factor in inflammations of the muscles,
tendons, and glands, and in inflammatory conditions of the lungs, kidneys,
heart, and even the brain, spinal cord, and the serous membranes
enveloping these great cranial and spinal viscera.

The individuality and characteristics of the syphilis microbe were not
positively determined until in 1905, Schaudinn, of Germany, convinced the
medical world that it was a spiral, corkscrew-like organism, from a
quarter to one millimeter in thickness, and from four to twelve
millimeters in length. It is not so discriminating as the gonococcus in
its points of inoculation, nor is it as vulnerable to attack; and it is
vastly more destructive to the tissues invaded. It spares no tissue in the
human frame, and resists destruction by any known drugs of vegetable
origin. When in a latent state its presence was often impossible to
determine until, two years after its discovery, a test was worked out by
Wasserman, also of Germany, by which diagnosis of the infection may be
made,--even in latent form,--as in a hereditary case where no clinical
manifestations have yet asserted themselves. There is another valuable
blood test worked out by Noguchi. With these two tests we are now able to
diagnose the disease, almost absolutely, and follow up the treatment till
cure is complete, except in some of the incurable brain and spinal cord
cases.