The disinclination to admit the possibility of a second infection with syphilis in a patient in whom the acquired disease has become generalized is fortified by clinical experience of many years. A few doubtful cases might be cited, but the preponderant weight of the opinion of the medical profession has been against such an interpretation of the facts presented. We are still ignorant of the explanation of the resistance of the tissues of a syphilitic patient to infection from without, while susceptible to local infection from within, especially as some of the late genital lesions often closely simulate a chancre.
If there have been so few, if any, authentic cases of reinfection, the explanation appears to be simple—there were few cases of radical cure. Some of the greatest authorities, notably Fournier and Hutchinson, believed, apparently, that they could eradicate the disease, and they certainly were able to follow some of