Syphilis Congenita – Infected in the Womb

Beckomberga hospital in Stockholm 1936. A six-year-old boy arrives from  in Stockholm. Very strange, what did a six-year-old boy do in a mental hospital for adults. This smiling cute light-haired boy on the photo in the journal was diagnosed congenital syphilis. A closer look in his papers showed that his mother also was hospitalised with a syphilis diagnosis. Why was the child not in the Lilla Hemmet institute, a natural place for children with hereditary syphilis in the Stockholm of those days, maybe he should be close to his mother while treated? But it was not so (1).

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Not applicable

The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.