To the Editor:—In looking over the June 1929 issue of the American Journal of Diseases of Children (vol. 37, p. 1283), I observed the statement that congenital syphilis is invariably aquired from the mother. The following facts present presumptive evidence to the contrary.
There is no syphilis in my family (father, mother and ten brothers and sisters) so far as I have discovered, although no exact tests were made. My sister, Mrs. M. L. A., was born in 1839 and married in 1855. Her husband died of scrofula in 1861. At that time, in Oregon, a diagnosis was not scientifically made. The first child of this family, a boy, used crutches for a number of years and died of scrofula at the age of 8. The second child, a daughter, never bore any children. She is alive now, aged 75, and has had fairly good health all these years.