Recent literature on syphilis : with special reference to serodiagnosis and treatment.

Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Recent literature on syphilis : with special reference to serodiagnosis and treatment. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    56/184 (page 52)
    Giant cells are not pathognomonic of any stage of syphilis. With the exception of the roseola and mucous patches they have been reported in all other lesions of the disease. The writer's material does not verify their finding in initial lesions, but LTnna reports them in the persistent nodules which often remain at the site of such lesions. They are more constantly encountered in the papular lesions, especially the small type or lichen syphiliticus and in the late secondary nodular or serpigenous %^-«C '^^ «:«\ '.- Fig. 3. SERPIGINOUS SYPHILIDE. Zeiss 8 mm., C. O. 4. Giant cell formation and thrombosis of vessels in a serpiginous lesion. lesions. The view that they result from the fusion of plasma cells is still held by many histopathologists, and while not an untenable one, there appears to the writer more corroborative evidence in favor of their vascular origin. The small lichenoid syphilide, owing to its localization about the hair follicle and the giant cells, which contribute so largely to the histological picture, is practically indistinguishable from that of lichen scrofulosorum.