+Accidental Syphilis in Physicians and Nurses.+--Another type of infection ought not to go unmentioned--that to which physicians and nurses are exposed in operating on or handling patients with active syphilis. Before the day of rubber gloves such things were much more common perhaps than they are now, yet they are common enough at the present time. Most of the risk occurs in exploring or working in cavities of the body containing infected discharges. The blood may become infected in passing over active sores. The risk from all these sources is so considerable that it is justifiable as a measure of protection to a hospital staff to take a blood test on every patient who applies for treatment in a hospital, to say nothing of the advantage which this would be to the patient. +Transmission by Intimate Contacts--Kissing.+--As we pass from the less to the more intimate means of contact between the syphilitic person and others, the risk of transmitting syphilis may be said to increase enormously. The fundamental conditions of moisture, a susceptible surface, protection of the germ from drying and from air, and possibly also massage or rubbing, are here better satisfied than in the risks thus far considered. Kissing, caresses, and sexual relations make up the origin of an overwhelming proportion of syphilitic infection. Infections are, of course, traceable to the nursing of syphilitic infants. It is through these sources of contact that syphilis invades the family especially. Many a syphilitic who realizes that he should not have sexual relations with his wife while he has the disease in active form will thoughtlessly infect her or his children by kissing. Kissing games are potentially dangerous, and a classical example of this danger is that of a reported case[11] in which a young man in Philadelphia infected seven young girls in one game, all of whom developed chancres on the lips or cheeks. It is no great rarity to find a syphilis dating from a sore on the lip that developed while a young couple were engaged. Certainly the indiscriminate kissing of strangers is as dangerous an indulgence as can be imagined. Syphilis does not by any means invariably follow a syphilitic's kiss, but the risk, although not computable in figures, is large enough to make even the impulsive pause. The combination of a cold sore or a small crack on the lip of the one and a mucous patch inside the lip of the other brings disaster very near. Children are sometimes the unhappy victims of this sort of thing, and it should be resented as an insult for a stranger to attempt to kiss another's child, no matter on what part of the body. It would be easy to multiply instances of the ways in which syphilis may be spread by the careless or ignorant in the close associations of family life, but little would be accomplished by such elaboration that would not occur to one who took the trouble to acquaint himself with the principles already discussed.