Excerpt from On the Foetus in Utero: As Inoculating the Maternal With the Peculiarities of the Paternal Organism, in a Series of Essays Now First Collected "It is a generally received opinion, I believe, that syphilis in its secondary stage, is not communicable directly to either sex from the other - that the disease is not propagated unless there exist an open chancre; and this accords with my observation. But it appears to me probable, that if a previously healthy woman conceive of an ovum tainted by syphilitic virus derived from its father, her system may become inoculated during the progress of gestation, in consequence of the close vascular connection existing between it and herself; for it has fallen to my lot to see more, than one case in which a young woman, united to a man labouring under obstinate secondary symptoms, remained healthy for some months after marriage, but became the subject of the same disease in its secondary form soon after impregnation had taken place; and I have considered that, in such a case, the mother derived the disease, not directly from the father, but from the affected infant which she carried in her womb." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.