SIGNIFICANCE OF POSITIVE WASSERMANN TEST IN NEW-BORN INFANT

Abstract

To the Editor:— InThe Journal, September 25, Dr. Charles Walter Clark reported a case supposedly of third generation syphilis. I believe his data fairly well establish congenital (prenatal) syphilis of the mother. However, the diagnosis of syphilis in the infant seems to be based entirely on positive, apparently nonquantitative serologic reports which are not sufficient evidence for the diagnosis. It has been conclusively demonstrated that an infant born of a syphilitic Wassermann-positive mother may have positive serologic signs at birth which gradually disappear, the child being normal clinically and eventually negative serologically without treatment. (Dunham, E. C.: The Diagnosis of Congenital Syphilis in the New-Born, Am. J. Dis. Child. 43 :317 [Feb.] 1932. Faber, H. K., and Black, W. C.: Quantitative Wassermann Tests in Diagnosis of Congenital Syphilis, ibid. 51 :1257 [June] 1936.) The explanation for this lies in passive transplacental transfer of reagin from the blood of the