Acquired Syphilis in Children*

The routine examination and follow-up of asexual familial contacts of patients suffering from early infectious syphilis is not commonly carried out. This is due to a widely held belief that asexually acquired syphilis is a relatively rare condition. It would appear possible that consideration of recent surveys of the non-venereal treponematoses, particularly that of endemic syphilis in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Grin, 1952), may lead to a modification of this view. During recent years attention has been drawn to the subject of acquired syphilis in children by several writers. Waugh (1938), Schoch and Long (1939), Smith (1939), Dyar and Goodwin (1941), Creswell and others (1943), and Eisenberg and others (1949) have reported cases in the United States of America, and Wofinden (1945) and Murrell and Gray (1947) have reported cases in Great Britain. Cases reported in the Literature Waugh (1938), who reviewed the literature in detail, stated that, although numerous cases of acquired yphilis in children had been reported from the middle of the 19th to the first few years of the 20th century, few reports had appeared after that date. He found and examined personally 35 cases of acquired syphilis in infants and children aged 5 months to 14 years in the six years 1931 to 1936 inclusive. In the age group 5 months to 11 years, 24 cases occurred, 41 per cent. of them being 2 years old or less; 22 cases were due to asexual transmission. In one family five children were infected, their ages ranging from 1 to 9 years. During the same period there were 183 cases of congenital syphilis, making the ratio of acquired to congenital infection 1 : 5-25. This distribution corresponds with that reported by Fruhinsholz (1903), where the ratio of acquired to congenital infection in a series of 96 cases is given as 1: 7, and with that reported by Grenet, Honnore, and Jeanjean (1922), where the corresponding figures were 1: 6-8 in a series of 102 cases.