ADDITIONAL FACTS ABOUT RACE HEALTH vii 



The second of these terrible diseases the one which may produce 

 blindness at birth is named gonorrhea. It is caused by the gonococcus 

 microbe, and it starts in the same general way as syphilis. The great 

 source of both is with those who live immoral lives. Very often the 

 same person has both diseases. 



The gonococcus microbe needs no broken surface through which 

 to travel; neither does it produce a visible sore, as does syphilis. 

 When a moist membrane, diseased with gonococcus microbes, touches a 

 healthy, moist membrane, the microbes go across and begin their work 

 of destruction. From their starting point they creep upward in the 

 body, traveling over the lining membrane of one slender tube after 

 another, carrying disease to each, until at last they reach the vital organs. 

 In tens of thousands of cases the inflammation within the tubes is so 

 extreme that they become hopelessly scarred, and because they are 

 scarred they contract and at last close entirely. After this no germ cell 

 is able to pass through them from the body, and all chance for the 

 beginning of another generation is cut off. In other words, the person 

 becomes sterile. 



In one important respect this disease differs from certain other con- 

 tagious diseases. Persons who have had smallpox are considered safe 

 from another attack. So also are those who have had measles and 

 mumps and scarlet fever. But with this disease the mere fact that a 

 person has had it once increases the chance of his having it again if he 

 is again exposed to it. And then, as Dr. Forel says, " When this disease 

 becomes chronic, relapses of the acute stage often occur without fresh 

 infection." He adds : " In women the results of gonorrhea are, if pos- 

 sible, still worse than in men. Women affected with chronic gonorrhea 

 generally become sterile." 



Already society is trying to protect itself against smallpox and leprosy, 

 against whooping cough, measles, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, typhoid 

 fever, yellow fever, and other communicable diseases. And yet there 

 still remain these other two diseases which at present hold more suffering 

 for this generation and the next than all the other diseases combined. 

 In view of this situation, we now know that the prevention of these two 

 diseases is the most important hygienic duty which faces the present 

 generation. We know that, as a whole, the rising generation is clear- 

 headed and sane, and that when it learns the facts, it will protect itself 

 by prevention. It is evident, then, that the health and safety of the nation 



