Liver Disease Associated with Secondary Syphilis

JAUNDICE occurring as an unusual complication of early syphilis has been recognized for 400 years.1 Our knowledge of the liver disease associated with the secondary and early latent stages of syphilis, however, is woefully inadequate. In contrast to careful studies of liver lesions in late and congenital syphilis (fibrosis, gumma and hepar lobatum) in autopsy material, clinical and pathological descriptions of early syphilitic liver disease have been infrequent. Hahn found 80 cases of syphilitic hepatitis among 33,825 patients with early syphilis in the literature and the Johns Hopkins' case material in 1943.2 We have been able to find only six . . .