The Laughlen Test in Syphilis

Abstract

THIS test seemed to offer an opportunity for the earlier diagnosis of late syphilis and particularly neuro-syphilis. A survey of a series of patients with neuro-syphilis in the Liverpool Royal Infirmary showed that the prognosis, even with most active therapy was very poor. This was mainly due to the fact that when the patient was brought to diagnosis as a result of the usual symptoms, too much damage had already been done to allow recovery; for good results the diagnosis should have been made at an asymptomatic stage. Clearly the only method of doing this would be to uncover the cases of latent infection by large-scale routine blood testing of the general population or at least of such sections of it as come under control, for example, hospital patients, panel patients, men in the services and so on. But such a scheme presents three difficulties. Firstly, that the percentage of syphilitics in the general population in this country is low. For instance, the proportion of positive blood sera found in 8I4 of I,587 patients admitted to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary under Professor Henry Cohen was only 8-4 per cent., as shown in Table I., though