The malignancy of the disease may be estimated by noting the rapidity with which the destructive lesions appear; thus gummas which appear early in the skin or mucous membranes, or elsewhere, indicate a serious type of the disease. So also does profound cachexia, including in this term more than mere anemia. The devastations of the disease in Europe during the fifteenth century show that it presented at that time a severe type. The eruptions of syphilis have been grouped under distinctive terms, and are usually referred to as _syphilides_ or _syphilodermas_. It has been already stated that among the new formations of syphilis are those known as syphilodermas; any of the former which are distinctly due to syphilis may be syphilomas. Thus, we may have syphiloma in the skin, in the bones, in the viscera, etc. It has been customary to speak of the syphilides as simulating the non-specific eruptions and identify them by placing before them the adjective syphilitic. Thus writers formerly described syphilitic psoriasis, syphilitic erythema, etc.; but these terms have been abandoned, because it is recognized that the skin lesions of syphilis while imitating most of the features of the non-specific diseases are yet distinctly different from them. We speak, therefore, now of a macular, vesicular, papular, squamous syphilide, etc., implying thereby that it is vesicular, scaly, or otherwise, as the case may be, and at the same time that it is a cutaneous expression of syphilis. [Illustration: PLATE VIII Grouped Miliary Papular Syphilide.] [Illustration: PLATE IX Mixed Papular and Papulopustular Syphilide.] [Illustration: PLATE X Tuberculous Ulcerating Syphilide, showing Lesions in Different Stages.] The _syphilodermas have certain peculiarities_ which are striking and distinctive; they are symmetrically distributed; their color is characteristic, and is due to the disease of the bloodvessel walls, which has been referred to, by which stasis is favored and exudation encouraged. The pigmentation is often striking, and, whatever it may be at first, it assumes a tint described by the terms “raw ham” or “coppery.” Dark pigmentation may take the place of the lighter colored, as the sole evidence of the existence of the previous lesion. Occasionally, however, the normal pigment of the skin disappears and a bleached-out area marks the site of the previous lesion. This is often irregular in shape and considerable in size. Such a spot is spoken of as _leukoderma_. Again, the syphilodermas are generally _polymorphous_, and seem to be capable of imitating almost every known non-specific skin affection; so close is the resemblance that it often requires careful study of the case to permit of diagnosis. The absence of itching is also a feature of most of these cases. The early syphilides are superficial, distributed generally and symmetrically, and disappear spontaneously.