Syphilis is a complex disease caused by bacteria, characterized by a wide variety of clinical presentations, which have earned the name of the great imitator or the great impostor. Despite the technological development and therapeutic options, sexually transmitted disease remains present in our society as in ancient times, being that regardless of the efforts to reduce its prevalence have remain high.   The roles of the Forensic attendant in the exploration of sexual crimes include the clearance of possibilities of sexually transmitted diseases. The implications associated with this type of transmission in both medico-legal and clinical features of the pathologies make necessary for the physician to know these topic, and being syphilis one of the most complex, it is considered necessary to review this condition.

Syphilis; Legal Medicine; clinical presentation; review