Chancre of the gum is one of the rarest of extragenital chancres. In the majority of textbooks and atlases on dermatology and syphilis the subject is either not mentioned at all, or is dismissed with the statement that the lesion is a rare one. In Fournier's 1 volume Les chancres extra-genitaux, and in Thouvenot's 2 These, gum chancres are more comprehensively described than in any other report that I have been able to find in the literature. In Power and Murphy's System of Syphilis and in Zinsser's excellent atlas of oral syphilis the lesion is briefly mentioned, and in this atlas there is no illustration of this type of chancre. Indeed there is a great paucity of illustrations of gum chancre in the literature. According to Thouvenot, the earliest recorded mention of gum chancre was by Astruc in 1736 and later in 1768 by Fabvre. The first recorded case report