+Variations in the Course of Syphilis in Different Persons.+—­So it comes about that in the secondary stage there may be wide differences in the amount and the location of the damage done by syphilis.  One patient may have a violent eruption, and very little else.  Another will scarcely show an outward sign of the disease and yet will be riddled by one destructive internal change after another.  In such a case the secondary stage of the disease may pass with half a dozen red spots on the body and no constitutional symptoms, and the patient go to pieces a few years later with locomotor ataxia or general paralysis of the insane.  On the other hand, a patient may have a stormy time in the secondary period and have abundant reason to realize he has syphilis, and under only moderate treatment recover entirely.  Still another will have a bad infection from the start, and run a severe course in spite of good treatment, to end in an early wreck.  The last type is fortunately not common, but the first type is entirely too abundant.  It cannot be said too forcibly that in the secondary as in the primary stage, syphilis may entirely escape the notice of the infected person, and he may not realize what ails him until years after it is too late to do anything for him.  Here, as in the primary stage, the lucky person is the one who shows his condition so plainly that he cannot overlook it, and who has an opportunity to realize the seriousness of his disease.  It used to be an old rule not to treat people who seemed careless and indifferent until their secondary eruption appeared, in the hope that this flare-up would bring them to their senses.  The necessity for such a rule shows plainly how serious a matter a mild early syphilis may be.

+The Dangerous Contagious Relapses.+—­Secondary syphilis does not begin like a race, at the drop of a hat, or end with the breaking of a tape.  When the first outburst has subsided, a series of lesser outbreaks, often covering a series of years, may follow.  These minor relapses or recurrences are mainly what make the syphilitic a danger to his fellows.  They are to a large extent preventable by thorough modern treatment.  Few people are so reckless as wholly to disregard precautions when the severe outburst is on.  But the lesser outbreaks, if they occur on the skin, attract little or no attention or are entirely misunderstood by the patient.  Only too often they occur as the flat, grayish patches in the mouth and genital tract, such as are seen in the secondary stage, where, because they are out of sight and not painful, they pass unnoticed.  The tonsils, the under side and edges of the tongue, and the angles of the mouth just inside the lips are favorite places for these recurrent mucous patches.  They are thus ideally placed to spread infection, for, as in the secondary stage, each of these grayish patches swarms with the germs of syphilis.  Similar recurrences about the genitals often grow, because of the moisture,