When bloodhounds (antisyphilitic "magic bullets") are set upon Corky, he realizes that he must make a mad dash through the body, decides that the quickest way is to get into the .
Practically all efforts to attack paresis hitherto have been frustrated because antisyphilitic drugs, usually mercury or arsenic compounds, cannot pass through the choroid plexus .
By the early 18th century, there were only two drugs known to be specific: cinchona bark for malaria, and mercury as an antisyphilitic agent.