Quotation from: Manual of SurgeryWritten by: Alexander Miles and Alexis Thomson |
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Some of these imply direct contact--such, for example, as kissing, the digital examination of syphilitic patients by doctors or nurses, or infection of the surgeon's fingers while operating upon a syphilitic patient. In suckling, a syphilitic wet nurse may infect a healthy infant, or a syphilitic infant may infect a healthy wet nurse. In other cases the infection is by indirect contact, the virus being conveyed through the medium of articles contaminated by a syphilitic patient--such, for example, as surgical instruments, tobacco pipes, wind instruments, table utensils, towels, or underclothing. Physiological secretions, such as saliva, milk, or tears, are not capable of communicating the disease unless contaminated by discharge from a syphilitic sore. While the saliva itself is innocuous, it can be, and often is, contaminated by the discharge from mucous patches or other syphilitic lesions in the mouth and throat, and is then a dangerous medium of infection. Unless these extra-genital sources of infection are borne in mind, there is a danger of failing to recognise the primary lesion of syphilis in unusual positions, such as the lip, finger, or nipple. When the disease is thus acquired by innocent transfer, it is known as _syphilis insontium_.
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