Diagnosis of prenatal syphilis presents all problems of diagnosis of syphilis with the addition of pregnancy. During the course of our study we noticed that the visible clinical lesions were prominent by their absence. This may be due to the fact that most of the cases come to these clinics only at 28 weeks of gestation or after; or may be due to the suppressive effect of pregnancy on the course of the disease. Thus most of the cases had to be handled as 'latent cases'. This naturally shifted the diagnostic emphasis from clinical signs to obstetric history and the results of STS (Quantitative) and the results of STS of the spouse. It was thought worthwhile to err on safer side by treating all cases on these criteria as TPI test was not possible at this institution. Therefore it is quite likely that some of our cases may not be cases of syphilis. We could not collect the samples of blood as frequently as desirable on account of wrong notions of the patients. Even after giving weightage to those points it is clear that the results of penicillin (alone) are beneficial to successful termination of pregnancy and birth of live healthy babies. Even the results of treatment given as late as 32 to 36 weeks of gestation are very encouraging.

Yaws is an infectious disease characterized by an initial cutaneous papular lesion followed by multiple papular granulomatous eruptions on the skin and bones. It is essentially a disease of the poor. Criteria which led to the diagnosis of Yaws in two families were: 1) Presence of extragenital primary lesions 2) Florid characteristic cutaneous manifestations 3) Non venereal mode of transmission 4) The presence in the lesion Of Treponema pertenue (indistinguishable morphologically from T pallidum) 5) Positive serological tests for syphilis 6) Response to Penicillin 7) The awareness of the existence of endemic foci of Yaws in the locality. History of pain in the bones made the diagnosis of Yaws more likely. Radiograms were taken in all the cases, but bone involvement was not seen in any of them.