PREMARITAL EXAMINATION FOR SYPHILIS

Long before enactment of the first law requiring premarital examination physicians were frequently asked to advise men and women in whom a diagnosis of syphilis had been made as to whether or not it was safe for them to marry. Laws have now been enacted in thirty-six states requiring for issuance of a marriage license a clinical examination and a laboratory test for syphilis and certification by the examining physicians that the applicant for license does not have syphilis in a stage that is actually or potentially communicable.

The meaning of premarital examination laws has sometimes been mistaken by physicians who have refused certification of freedom from communicable or potentially communicable syphilis on the basis of a positive blood reaction alone. The law is not intended to prevent permanently the marriage of persons with syphilis, but only to delay the marriage of those with communicable or potentially.communicable syphilis until the