A STUDY OF THE WASSERMANN REACTION IN ONE HUNDRED INFANTS

In an article entitled "The Wassermann Reaction in Children and Infants," Churchill¹ states that a positive serum reaction was found in thirty-nine of 101 children examined. The cases were taken "mostly at random" from a large hospital for children. There was a family or past history of syphilis, or signs of the disease, together with a positive serum reaction in twenty-nine of these cases. In the ten other cases, the serum reaction was positive without a history of or evidences suggestive of syphilitic infection. The technic used in some of the cases was that recommended by Wassermann, but in the majority the Noguchi modification was employed. Churchill was surprised to find so large a number of positive serum reactions in children apparently free from syphilis, but he wisely suggested that further studies were necessary before valid conclusions as to the incidence of latent hereditary syphilis could be drawn.

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