oman has a right to marry a syphilitic husband if she wants
to and run the risk of contracting syphilis. Her body is her own, and
if she does it with her eyes open it is her affair. But a woman has no
right to bring into the world syphilitic or syphilitically tainted
children. Here society has a right to interfere.

Syphilis runs a milder course in women than it does in men. But this
milder course is not an unmixed blessing; it may be considered a
misfortune, because, the same as gonorrhea in women, syphilis is often
present for months and years until it has made such inroads that it
is but little amenable to treatment. In many women the disease runs
such a mild course, as far as definite symptoms are concerned, that
they are sure they never had anything the matter with them, and they
are perfectly sincere in their denial of ever having had any
infection. Often it is only when they complain of obscure symptoms,
for which we can find no explanation, and then take a Wassermann test,
that we discover what the real trouble is. And then the internal
organs are sometimes found so deeply affected that it is hard to do
anything. So it is seen that the mildness of the course of the
disease, while a good thing in itself, is bad in that respect that it
prevents timely treatment. It is therefore important that whenever a
woman is in any way suspicious that she may have the disease that she
have herself examined; and if she has reasons to suspect that her
husband or partner has the disease, she should persuade him to have
himself examined.

Locomotor ataxia, one of the most terrible sequelae of syphilis, is
much more rare in women than it is in men. So is general paresis, also
called general paralysis of the insane, or softening of the brain.

=Chancroids=

There is one other minor disease belonging to the venereal diseases;
that is chancroids. Chancroids are little ulcers on the genitals; they
are purely local and do not affect the system. They are due largely to
uncleanliness, and are found only among the poorer classes of
prostitutes and therefore among the poorer classes of men. One sees
them now and then in public dispensaries, but in private practice they
are now quite rare. They used to be quite common, which shows that the
general level of cleanliness has been raised considerably among all
classes of people. At any rate, chancroids are of little significance,
as compared with syphilis and gonorrhea, and when speaking o