THE ARSENICAL TREATMENT OF SYPHILIS

Much attention has recently been paid to the arsenic treatment of syphilis and particularly to the Ehrlich-Hata preparation known as "606", i. e., the dioxydiamidoarsenobenzol dihydrochlorid, a single injection of a proper dose of which is reported to be destructive of the Spirochœta pallida . The recently recorded cases show a striking uniformity in the immediate curative effects in all of the spirilloses, or diseases of spirochetic origin. It is believed that this arsenical preparation is as destructive of the spirochetes as quinin is of the plasmodia of malaria. The spirochetes disappear entirely from the local lesion and from the blood in from four to ten hours after the injection of the remedy and the disease appears to be entirely arrested in twenty-four hours. These seem astonishing statements but they are verified by a number of able observers as Ehrlich, Hata, Wechselmann, Alt of Uchtspring, Schreiber of Magdeburg, Iversen of Russia