tate the penis; hollow out the inguinal fold; cut and plough up the skin of the abdomen from one iliac region to the other; descend to the thighs; and, if I dared so to say, unpantaloon the patient. Well! these chancres, in order to make this progress, in order to attain these bounds (which are not even the last they may attain), have often required the lapse of months and years, though, at the close of this period, furnishing inoculable pus with results as grave as at the commencement. And yet in these cases the number of the accidental and successive ulcerations, their surface and duration, are, it seems to me, equivalent to what is observed in the inoculations designated preventive, which are repeated at short intervals, and in the same region. It is true that here nature or the disease produces this result without a preventive intention, which establishes a difference as to intentional art. Animal magnetism, if you are a believer in the doctrine, may perhaps give you the explanation of this mystery. But what can now be said in comparison with what has just reached us from Turin? Bohemia is excelled; and the name of M. Waller must pale before that of M. Spérino, the boldest and most fortunate of experimenters. Since I saw the balloons of Paris, and have been familiar with all that MM. Poitevin and Godard transported to the clouds, I have become more credulous, and am no longer astonished at anything, unless it be at the fact that three or four inoculations were made once or twice a week, for two months, on the bellies of fifty public women (which gives us a total of twenty-four, and in some forty-eight and sixty-four inoculations); that there was no question of phagedænism; that no circumstance occurred to render the experiments questionable; that in no instance could a chancre become indurated before another inoculation prevented this result, though it is well known how rapidly chancre infects and becomes indurated, and that it is not assumed to be able to infect prior to this manifestation; and, finally, that M. Spérino tells us it was not until the figures above indicated were attained that he could no longer inoculate! Yes, I am astonished; and I await the report of the commission which, I trust, will give us all the details which are not supplied by the facts of M. Spérino. I await especially the presentation of a syphilized and refractory individual, who may come before the cliniciens of the Hôpital du Midi, or before the National Academy of Medicine, to defy me, in the lists, with the arms of my choice. In the mean while, the conclusion which results from the analysis which I have made of the published observations made at Paris and Italy, is, that the pus which comes from non-indurated chancres has always been inoculated to produce analogous accidents; and that in the only instance in which the pus obtained from a primitive accident which had produced a constitutional syphilis, was used, at Paris, to inoculate a patient who was healthy, the individual was affected with an indurated chancre and a general poisoning. Were it always thus, as I have already stated, it would be necessary to come to this conclusion: That differences may exist in the disease which do not depend upon the conditions of the affected individual alone, but also upon differences in the causes of the disease. Be this as it may, what, in view of all the circumstances with which you are familiar, would you think of a method, which, to prevent your contracting a chancre of which you do not necessarily run the risk, as in the case of variola, requires that you should be first inoculated with it from twenty-four to sixty-four times, and that, too, without your knowing how long this dearlybought immunity is likely to last? However, with respect to such grave questions, studied by men of respectability, it is necessary to be calm and unprejuIdiced. Doctrines and systems ought to be presented with wise moderation, so as not to come in contact with new facts; though they should embrace nothing which is not rigorously demonstrated. This incontestable demonstration, then, is what I require; and, as an inducement for M. Spérino to give it to me, let him recollect that Turin was the country of Lagrange, one of the most illustrious representatives of the exact sciences, and that, as his compatriot, he should render me mathematical precision; else I shall say to him, "Si non è vero, non è ben trovato.” Yours, RICORD. P. S.-My colleague, M. Puche, has just performed seven successive inoculations; the last as active as the first! LETTER XXXIII. MY DEAR FRIEND: You had the kindness to communicate to me a letter addressed to you by M. Auzias-Turenne, relative to what I said in my last letter upon syphilization and syphilism. You have expressed the desire, if I had any reply to make to the letter of M. Auzias, that it should appear at the same time as the letter itself. Your motives are proper, and will be understood, without other explanation, by every candid reader. You believe in progress, and receive it, without repugnance, even in its boldest manifestations. But I congratulate you on the fact that you neither surrender your right of examining what is presented to your notice, nor of holding, with a wise and prudent reserve, your opinions in abeyance. When a question so important as that we are about to consider comes before us, it is dangerous not to attack it directly; it is puerile to expect to stifle it by a disdainful silence. Let us then examine the new doctrines which M. Auzias seeks to propagate; but first let us yield him the floor, so that he may explain his new views: "TO THE CHIEF EDITOR OF THE UNION MEDICALE: The poison furnished by chancres produced, when inoculated upon the arm by means of a lancet, two venereal ulcers. The experiment was followed by the cure of a soldier who was the prey of an old syphilis which proved rebellious to all treatment.-PETIT-RADEL. MR. EDITOR: There are correct ideas, as there are good men. They improve upon acquaintance. Now, M. Ricord has, in your columns of the 12th of August, thrown a false air around syphilization; involuntarily, without doubt. Permit me, then, simply to make the subject understood by your readers. Syphilization is neither a virus nor a disease-such, for example, as vaccinia and variola. It is a state analogous to that in which we consider one who is affected with the smallpox. In fact, after having had the variola, we have acquired immunity from the disease. In the same way, after having experienced successively a sufficient number of chancres, we are syphilized; that is to say, insured against all the forms of syphilis. Syphilism is the aptitude to be syphilized. Undoubtedly, we possess this in different degrees. Therefore, it is a natural quality; while syphilization is a property acquired by virtue of this quality. Finally, we accept without hesitation the qualifying term syphilizer, suggested by M. Diday; in the same way as we formerly spoke of circulators, inoculators. This analogy is not without force. But what are we to say about the words saturation, impregnation, and infiltration, when taken literally? We do not wish to be saturated, impregnated, or infiltrated with the syphilitic virus, any more than with that of the smallpox; we do not wish, in a word, to be the focus of infection and corruption itself! What we maintain is that, when we are syphilized, we have experienced, in a short time, the syphilitic disease, and are not liable to it any farther than to the smallpox with which we have been affected. We would accept any other rational explanation of syphilization; but we energetically reject a theory which would prove to every one a source of prejudice. In order to make syphilization understood, let us suppose that a traveller passes over the two sides of a mountain, first from the base to the summit, afterwards from the summit to the base. He represents the person whom we syphilize. The chancres correspond to the different portions of his route; thus, the indurated chancre, the index of constitutional syphilis, corresponds to the crest of the mountain, and syphilization to the end of the journey. By his first chancres this traveller approaches constitutional syphilis. He then goes on until, by means of other chancres, he is brought to syphilization. In order, then, to extricate himself from the constitutional syphilis, he must not pause in the middle of his route. Every one, prior to being syphilized, is susceptible to constitutional syphilis; but it is avoided by the majority of those who have chancres, either because they do not reach, or because they go beyond the disease. Constitutional syphilis can undoubtedly be given to any one who has not had the affection, just as every one may be preserved from it. It is easily understood, from what I have just said, that it is impossible to attain the state of syphilization without passing through that of constitutional syphilis. The essential point is so to hasten its development by inoculations that it may not have time to injure our organs. Indurated chancre, then, is nothing but the index of a pause at this period, which, though really inevitable, may be rendered as short as is desirable. We consequently say, with due submission to Dubois and M. Ricord: "He who wishes to have, can have the pox." But we add: Non bis in idem. There is perhaps an exception in the cases of those whose parents had the pox, and who, on that account, may, from hereditary predisposition, be refractory to it. A certain degree of syphilization in the parents would be a source of immunity to the children. Thus I am led, by facts and by reasoning, to admit the existence of but one virus, which produces, according to its specific condition, or according to the state of the organism, sometimes a simple, and sometimes an indurated chancre. Should M. Ricord, as he gives us reason to suspect, cease firmly to hold on high the flag which Hunter committed to him, and on which is inscribed, unity of virus, I would seize its staff boldly, so much am I convinced that within its folds is the truth to be found. Yes, there is only one syphilitic virus; and this unique virus is not protean. But it reacts differently, according as the organism is influenced by such or such a reagent, or perhaps as this virus itself varies in regard to the degree of its concentration. I fear that some may misunderstand it, as the old chemists misunderstood a simple body, in its various combinations! Be no longer surprised that M. Ricord has seen simple chancres precede and follow indurated chancres upon the same person; but be surprised that he should suspect, in order to explain these differences, the existence of more than one virulent cause. A single virus with graduated forms, and an organism variously modified by these forms, easily furnish the key to these apparent contradictions. Moreover, there is no necessity to assume a particular virus in order to account for phagedænism. To account for a notable diminution of syphilism, under the influence of which diminu |