ROENTGEN-POSITIVE SERONEGATIVE INFANTILE CONGENITAL SYPHILIS

In the year Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 1934, at the Philadelphia General Hospital, where the incidence of syphilis among the pregnant women is 11.8 per cent, not one of the 1,517 babies discharged alive from the maternity division showed any clinical evidence diagnostic of congenital syphilis. Of the 126 stillborn infants and infants dying soon after birth in this hospital in the same period of time, 19 (15.1 per cent) were the offspring of syphilitic mothers, the death rate being 9.7 per cent among the syphilitic group (195 patients) as compared with 7.5 per cent among the infants in the obstetrical division at large (1,643 patients).It so happens that the majority of the syphilitic mothers who deliver their babies in this hospital have had insufficient treatment to insure the birth of healthy children, since it is unusual for a woman to report for prenatal supervision prior to the