Penicillin treatment of syphilis.

It is now eight years since Mahoney first employed penicillin for the treatment of syphilis. Since then there have been innumerable reports confirming his results and attesting to the efficacy of penicillin not only for the treatment of early syphilis but for the treatment of all stages of the disease. More and more syphilologists have discarded the heavy metals and rely on penicillin alone for treatment because of the favorable results obtained with it and also because of the ease of administration, its safety, the shortened course and the low cost of such treatment. Many physicians, however, still are undecided about which is the better course to follow—the administration of penicillin alone or penicillin combined with heavy metals and, for some cases, with fever therapy. The accumulated experience of many syphilis clinics in treating thousands of patients of all types clearly indicates the superiority of treatment with penicillin alone in