TY - JOUR T1 - THe parasitology of syphilis AU - HARRIS FG Y1 - 1909/09/04 N1 - 10.1001/jama.1909.92550100001001a JO - Journal of the American Medical Association SP - 757 EP - 762 VL - LIII IS - 10 N2 - Syphilis has long been considered an infectious disease, but until recent years the discovery of the causal agent has eluded the most careful investigation. There has hardly been a pathologist or syphilographer of note who has not attempted to unravel the mystery. It would be impossible here to enumerate all the alleged causes that have been reported. Lassar has said that during the past twenty-five years at least 125 causes have been assigned to syphilis. It is evident that the great majority of these theories were very short-lived. There are three, however, that deserve mention. The bacillus which Lustgarten described in 1885 occupied the stage for several years, being defended by so good an observer as Weigert, but later it was shown to be identical with the smegma bacillus. The next appearance was Neissen's so-called syphilis bacillus. Recently Neissen1 has published the results of his fifteen years' SN - 0002-9955 M3 - doi: 10.1001/jama.1909.92550100001001a UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1909.92550100001001a ER -