Pulmonary Pathology: Lung: Congenital Syphilis: Pneumonia alba

A neonatal autopsy specimen from a case of alleged neglect at birth. An unmarried girl of 27, already the mother of three children, two of whom had died at birth, delivered her fourth child at eight months 'unexpectedly whilst at the pictures'. She retired to the public lavatory and was only there for some ten minutes before the child was born. It breathed, according to her, for a 'minute or two' then 'gulped and died'. It had inhaled mucus and blood in sufficient quantity to account for this. The mother was undergoing treatment for syphilis but, was an irregular attender.