The sex diseases are the same in both sexes, whether developed by
direct or accidental infection. They are the greatest practical
argument in favor of continence, morality and marriage in the sex
relation.
GONORRHEA
Gonorrhea is a pus-discharging inflammation of the canal known as the
_urethra_, which passing through the entire length of the organ,
carries both the urine and the seminal fluid. It is caused by a
venereal bacillus, the _gonococcus_. Under favorable conditions and
with right treatment, gonorrhea may be cured, though violently
painful, in fourteen days. Often the inflammation extends, becomes
chronic and attacks other organs. This chronic gonorrhea often causes
permanent contraction of the urethra, which leads to the painful
retention of urine, catarrh of the bladder, and stone. Chronic
gonorrhea, too, often ends in death, especially if the kidneys are
attacked. A cured case of gonorrhea does not mean immunity from
further attacks. New infections are all the more easily acquired.
Gonorrhea has even more dangerous consequences in women than in men.
The _gonococcus_ bacilli infect all the inner female genital organs.
They cause frequent inflammations and lead to growths in the belly.
Women thus attacked usually are apt to be sterile; they suffer
agonies, and often become chronic invalids. The child born of a
gonorrheal mother, while passing through the infected genital organs,
comes to life with infected eyelids. This is _Blennorrhea_, which may
result in total blindness. Gonorrhea also causes inflammation of the
joints, gonorrheal rheumatism, testicular inflammations which may lead
to sterility. Some authorities claim that fully half the sterility in
women is caused by gonorrheal infection of the Fallopian tubes.
Gonorrheal infection of the eyes at birth is now prevented by first
washing them in a saturated solution of boric acid, then treating them
with a drop of weak silver solution.
SYPHILIS
Syphilis is a still more terrible venereal disease. It usually appears
first in small, hard sores, hard chancres, on the sexual parts or the
mouth. Then the syphilitic poison spreads throughout the whole body by
means of the blood. After a few weeks it breaks out on the face or
body. Its final cure is always questionable. Syphilis may lie dormant
for years, and then suddenly become active again. It breaks out in