presented are the common property of the medical profession, and it is
impossible to claim originality for their substance. Almost every
sentence is written under the shadow of some advance in knowledge which
cost a life-time of some man's labor and self-sacrifice. The story of
the conquest of syphilis is a fabric of great names, great thoughts,
dazzling visions, epochal achievements. It is romance triumphant, not
the tissue of loathsomeness that common misconception makes it.

The purpose of this book is accordingly to put the accepted facts in
such a form that they will the more readily become matters of common
knowledge. By an appeal to those who can read the newspapers
intelligently and remember a little of their high-school physiology, an
immense body of interested citizens can be added to the forces of a
modern campaign against the third great plague. For such an awakening of
public opinion and such a movement for wider coöperation, the times are
ready.

JOHN H. STOKES.

ROCHESTER, MINN.




CONTENTS

PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE HISTORY OF SYPHILIS 11