The secondary period as a whole is not in itself the serious stage of syphilis. Most of the symptoms are easily controlled by treatment if they are recognized. Now and then instances of serious damage to sight, hearing, or important organs elsewhere occur, but these are relatively few in spite of the enormous numbers and wide distribution of the germs. Accordingly, the problems that the secondary stage offers the physician and society at large must center around the recognition of mild and obscure cases and adequate treatment for all cases. The identification of the former is vital because of the recurrence of extremely infectious periods throughout this stage of the disease, and the latter is essential because vigorous treatment, carried out for a long enough time, prevents not only the late complications which destroy the syphilitic himself, but does away with the menace to society that arises through his infecting others, whether in marriage and sexual contact or in the less intimate relations of life. Chapter V The Nature and Course of Syphilis (Continued) LATE SYPHILIS (TERTIARY STAGE) +The Seriousness of Late Syphilis.+--While we recognize a group of symptoms in syphilis which we call late or tertiary, there is no definite or sharp boundary of time separating secondary from tertiary periods. The man who calculates that he will have had his fling in the ten or twenty years before tertiary troubles appear may be astonished to find that he can develop tertiary complications in his brain almost before he is well rid of his chancre. "Late accidents," as we call them, are the serious complications of syphilis. They are, as has been said, brought about by relatively few germs, the left-overs from the flooding of the body during the secondary period. There is still a good deal of uncertainty as to just what the distribution of the germs which takes place in the secondary period foreshadows in the way of prospects for trouble when we come to the tertiary period. It may well be that the man who had many germs in his skin and a blazing eruption when he was in the second stage, may have all his trouble in the skin when he comes to the late stage. It is the verdict of experience, however, that people who have never noticed their secondary eruption because it was so mild are more likely to be affected in the nervous system later on. But this may be merely because the condition, being unrecognized, escapes treatment. It is at least safe to say that those whose skins are the most affected early in the disease are the fortunate ones, because their recognition and treatment in the secondary stage help them to escape locomotor ataxia and softening of the brain. Conversely the victim who judges the extent and severity of his syphilis by the presence or absence of a "breaking out" is just the one to think himself well for ten or twenty years because his skin is clean, and then to wake up some fine morning