+The Wet Nurse.+--This is also the proper place to introduce a warning about the wet nurse. Women who must have the assistance of a wet nurse to feed their babies should, under no circumstances, make such arrangements without the full supervision of their physicians. There is no better method for transmitting syphilis to a healthy woman than for her to nurse a syphilitic child. Conversely, the healthy child who is nursed by a syphilitic woman stands an excellent chance of contracting the disease, since the woman may have sores about the nipples and since the germs of syphilis have been found in the milk of syphilitic women. The only person who should nurse a syphilitic child is its own mother, who has syphilis and, therefore, cannot be infected. A Wassermann blood test with a thorough examination is the least that should be expected where any exchanges are to take place. Nothing whatever should be taken for granted in such cases, and the necessary examinations and questions should not give offense to either party to the bargain. Syphilis is not a respecter of persons, and exists among the rich as well as among the poor. +Hereditary Syphilis in Older Children.+--Hereditary syphilis may become a latent or concealed disease, just as acquired syphilis does. None the less, it leaves certain traces of its existence which can be recognized on examination. These are chiefly changes in the bones, which do not grow normally. The shin bones are apt to be bowed forward, not sideways, as in rickets. The skull sometimes develops a peculiar shape, the joints are apt to be large, and so on. Syphilis may affect the mental development of children in various ways. Perhaps 5 per cent of children are idiots as a result of syphilis. Certain forms of epilepsy are due to syphilitic changes in the brain. On the other hand, syphilitic children may be extraordinarily bright and capable for their years. Some are stunted in their growth and develop their sexual characteristics very late or imperfectly. It is one of the wonders of medicine to see a sickly runt of a child at fifteen or sixteen develop in a few months into a very presentable young man or girl under the influence of salvarsan and mercury. A few syphilitic children seem robust and healthy from the start. The signs of the disease may be very slight, and pass unrecognized even by the majority of physicians. Some of them may be splendid specimens of physical and mental development, but they are exceptional. The majority are apt to be below par, and nothing shows more plainly the insidious injury done by the disease than the way in which they thrive and change under treatment. Even those who are mentally affected often show surprising benefits.