TPI Test in Untreated Syphilis: A SEROLOGICAL RE-EXAMINATION OF 50 PATIENTS BELONGING TO "THE OSLO STUDY OF UNTREATED SYPHILIS"

The Boeck-Bruusgaard series of cases of untreated syphilis consists of approximately 2,000 patients with primary and/or secondary syphilis, hospitalized in the Dermatological Department, University Hospital, Oslo, in the 20 years between 1891 and 1910.Prof. Caesar Boeck, who was head of the Dermatological Department in those years, had very little belief in the effect upon early syphilis of the various anti- syphilitic drugs which were then available; conse- quently drugs were very rarely given to patients with early syphilis in his department and this policy was continued until Salvarsan was introduced in 1910.Mercury was administered only in exceptional cases, and potassium iodide to some patients whose clinical course was presumed to indicate its use, but in general, the patients with early syphilis were left