time--the child may be carried to term. It then may be born dead, or 

it may be born strongly syphilitic, and die in a few days or weeks, or 

it may be born without any signs of syphilis and be apparently healthy 

and then develop the disease at the age of ten, twelve, fourteen, or 

later, or it may be born healthy and remain healthy. But no woman who 

had syphilis, or whose husband had syphilis, should _dare_ to conceive 

or to give birth to a child unless she has been given permission by a 

competent physician. I mean just what I say. It is not a personal 

matter. A woman 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