Results of Serologic Tests for Syphilis in Non-syphilitic Persons Inoculated with Malaria

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Abstract
Malaria apparently exerts a pronounced influence upon the specificity of the complement-fixation and flocculation tests. In the author''s series of 11 dementia praecox patients inoculated with malaria, all gave false positive reactions by at least 2 techniques. The Hinton test was the only one which failed to give at least 1 positive reaction. This is difficult to understand in view of previous studies made, in which false positive reactions were obtained with the Hinton test in 11 and 4% of patients with malaria. Syphilis is excluded as a cause of the positive reactions in this study by negative blood and spinal fluid serologic reactions, history and physical examination before inoculation with malaria, and also by the fact that all patients became and remained sero-negative after complete recovery from malaria. Diagnosis of asymptomatic syphilis based upon positive serology alone should not be made in any area where malaria is endemic without first eliminating the possibility of coincident malarial infection.

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