1. I would make it an invariable rule that no syphilitic patient should marry or should be permitted to marry before _five_ years have elapsed from the day of infection. But the period of time alone is not sufficient; other conditions must be met before we may give a syphilitic patient permission to marry. 2. The man or the woman must have received thorough systematic treatment for at least three years, either constantly or off and on, according to the physician's judgment. 3. For at least one year before the intended marriage, the person must have been absolutely free from any manifestations of syphilis; that is, from any eruptions on the skin, from any mucous patches, swelling in the bones, ulcerations, and so on. 4. Four Wassermann tests, taken at intervals of three months and at a time _when the patient was receiving no specific treatment_, must be absolutely negative. If these four conditions are fully met, then the patient may be permitted to marry. It is important, however, to state that, in permitting or refusing syphilitic persons to marry, we are guided to a great extent by the fact as to whether they _expect to have children soon or not_. In the case of a couple who are anxious to have children soon after their marriage, the conditions for our permission must be more severe than when the couple are willing or anxious to use contraceptive measures for the first years of their married life. For, if a man is free from any skin lesions and from any mucous patches, his wife is safe from infection _as long as she does not become pregnant_. But, if she does get pregnant, she may become infected through the fetus; and, of course, the child also is liable to be syphilitic. Hence, much stricter requirements for syphilitics who expect to become parents are necessary than for those who do not. In case both the man and the woman are or have been syphilitic, permission to marry may be granted without hesitation, as the danger of infection is absent, but permission to have children must be refused _absolutely_ and _unequivocally_. Regardless of the time that may have elapsed from the period of infection, regardless of treatment, regardless of Wassermann tests, the danger to the child is too great if both parents have the syphilitic taint in them. A healthy child _may_ be born from two syphilitic parents who have undergone energetic treatment, but we have no right to take the chance. I, at least, never wanted to, nor ever will want to, take such a responsibility. =The Danger of Locomotor Ataxia or Paresis.= There is still one more point to consider in dealing with a syphilitic patient. In patients who did not receive energetic treatment from the very beginning of the disease as also in patients whose treatment was only desultory and irregular, we never can guarantee, in spite of lack of external symptoms, in spite of a negative Wassermann reaction, that some trouble may not develop later in life.