+Sexual Relations, Kissing, Etc.—­Contagious Sores.+—­Sexual indulgence, kissing, and other intimate contacts during the active stage of syphilis, as has been indicated, directly expose others to the risk of getting the disease.  For that reason they should not be indulged in during the first two years of the average well-treated case receiving salvarsan and mercury by the most modern methods.  Exceptions to this rule should be granted only by the physician, and should be preceded by careful and repeated examination in connection with the treatment.  Under no circumstances should a patient kiss or have intercourse if there is even the slightest sore or chafe on the parts, regardless of whether or not it is thought to be syphilitic.

+Articles of Personal Use.+—­Persons with a tendency to recurrences in the mouth or elsewhere should report to the physician any sore they may discover and should watch for them.  Persons with syphilitic sores in the mouth or elsewhere should have their own dishes, towels, toilet articles, shaving tools, pipes, silverware, and personal articles, and should not exchange or permit others to use them.

+Secrecy.+—­Professional secrecy is something to which the syphilitic is most certainly entitled when it can be had without danger to the public health.  So long as a syphilitic in the contagious period carefully observes the principles which ought to govern him in his relations to others, his condition is his own concern.  But there is one person within the family who should, as a rule, know of his infection if it is still in the contagious period, since it is almost impossible to secure cooeperation otherwise.  No matter how painful it may be, a person with syphilis, if advised to do so by his physician, should tell husband or wife the true state of affairs.  There is no harder duty, often, and none which, if manfully performed, should inspire more respect.  For those who will not follow his advice in this matter the physician cannot assume any responsibility, and is fully justified, and in fact wise, if he decline to undertake the case.

+Re-infection.+—­Since it is a common misconception, it cannot be said too forcibly that no person with syphilis should forget that his having had the disease does not confer any immunity, and that as soon as he is cured he may acquire it again.  It is possible, by a single exposure to infection, to undo the whole effect of what has been done, just after a cure is accomplished.  There can be only one safe rule for infected as well as uninfected persons—­to keep away from the risk of syphilis.