UNTREATED SYPHILIS IN THE MALE NEGRO

Abstract

A determination of the effectiveness of treatment in preventing the transmission of syphilis is one of the basic problems in the control of this disease. Second in importance to it is the effect which treatment has in preventing late and crippling manifestations. The administration of adequate treatment in early syphilis is recognized as the most important factor in the prevention both of communicable relapse and of the early complications so detrimental to the health of the individual patient. As the result of surveys of a few years ago in southern rural areas it was learned that a considerable portion of the infected Negro population remained untreated during the entire course of syphilis. Such individuals seemed to offer an unusual opportunity to study the untreated syphilitic patient from the beginning of the disease to the death of the infected person. An opportunity was also offered to compare this process, uninfluenced by