The liver in secondary (early) syphilis.

When syphilis was in its heyday sophisticated investigation of patients with liver disease was in its infancy. In particular needle hepatic biopsy was introduced only in the 1940's just before syphilis received a setback with the advent of penicillin. There have therefore been few detailed accounts of hepatic histology during the various stages of syphilis. Older writers relied on autopsy findings, and so the pericellular hepatic fibrosis of congenital syphilis (the liver teeming with spirochetes) was recognized and the hobnailed, scarred appearance of the gummatous liver had always to be distinguished from a macronodular (post-necrotic) cirrhosis.1 An acute benign hepatitis . . .