Tpi Test in Untreated Syphilis * a Serological Re - Examination of 50 Patients

The Boeck-Bruusgaard series of cases of untreated syphilis consists of approximately 2,000 patients with primary and/or secondary syphilis, hospitalized in the Dermatological Department, University Hospital, Oslo, in the 20 years between 1891 and 1910. Prof. Caesar Boeck, who was head of the Dermatological Department in those years, had very little belief in the effect upon early syphilis of the various antisyphilitic drugs which were then available; consequently drugs were very rarely given to patients with early syphilis in his department and this policy was continued until Salvarsan was introduced in 1910. Mercury was administered only in exceptional cases, and potassium iodide to some patients whose clinical course was presumed to indicate its use, but in general, the patients with early syphilis were left untreated. They were, however, thoroughly examined and systematic records were kept, so that an outstanding series of patients with untreated early syphilis was created. This material was re-examined clinically by Bruusgaard (1929); and later by Danbolt, Clark, and Gjestland (1954), Gjestland (1955), and Clark and Danbolt (1955). These publications, especially Gjestland's great monograph published in 1955, have furnished extremely valuable information on the clinical course of untreated syphilis. This "Oslo Study of Untreated Syphilis" was reviewed by Harrison (1956), but the present investigation is serological, its chief aim being to procure new information on the sensitivity of the TPI test in very old syphilis, untreated in the early stages.