[Syphilis--''to be or not to be"].

Syphilis has increased in Denmark and this "great imitator" disease is easily overlooked. Two case stories are presented; one case illustrates how a patient with classical symptoms of secondary syphilis was overlooked by doctors of several specialities for one year, and the other case is of a patient with a lesion on the penis presenting clinically, serologically and histologically as a syphilitic chancre, but it proved to be a rare chronic inflammatory condition known as a pseudotumor. It is emphasized that doctors in all specialities should increase their awareness of this disease.