Implications of the Reported Finding of Treponemes of Little or no Virulence after the treatment of Syphilis with Penicillin

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Abstract
Discussion of a paper (Collart, P., L. J. Boreal, P. Durel. Significance of spiral organisms found, after treatment, in late human and experi-mental syphilis, Brit. J. Venereal Dis. 40, 81-89, June, 1964) which suggests that Treponema pallidum is not killed in the experimental animal or in the human being by late treatment but is simply rendered less virulent. There is need for confirmation of these findings in another laboratory; for identifying the silver stained spiral organisms as T. pallidum. since it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the organisms could be "septicemic saprophytic treponemes with some low cross-antigenic powers." Future improvement in the techniques of immunofluorescence may make such positive identification possible. There is also need for correlation of the presence of these organisms with reactive T. pallidum immobilization test reactions.