Tabes with Negative Wassermann Reaction in Blood and Spinal Fluid

recognised that many people are unsuitable for such treatment, particularly in the case of neurotic and highly reflex types ; so also individuals with blonde skins which do not easily pigment and easily freckle are not usually favourable subjects, and in these depression and not stimulation often follow the treatments. The same would also apply to all cases of hydroa aestivalis (recurrent summer eruption), in many of which there is an excess of haematoporphyrin in the urine. A condition of depression is also produced by an overdose in cases otherwise favourable. It has been found that after exposure to light a rise in the haemo-bactericidal power of the blood is demonstrable, which power persists for a few hours and then returns to the normal. R. G. Bennerman has shown that an overdose of light, such as an initial exposure of half an hour to the mercuryvapour lamp, produces a rise in the haemo-bactericidal power, which not only returns to normal, but which may fall below the original level and remain below it for some time before gradually rising to the normal. This was found to be accompanied by certain other phenomena, notably an increase in the rate of sedimentation of blood corpuscles which is taken to indicate a phase of diminished resistance. This apparent lowering of resistance may account for the condition of depression which is produced by the exposure to light of unsuitable cases.