DISEASES PECULIAR TO MEN 641 



3. Lastly, we mention a milky looking fluid, in 

 quantity varying from one to two drops to half a tea- 

 spoonful, escaping at the beginning or end of urination, 

 which is found to contain a greater or less quantity of 

 spermatozoa. 



All discharges from the urethra are liable to con- 

 tain spermatozoa in greater or less quantities, either 

 as the result of a relaxed condition of the openings of 

 the ejaculatory ducts, which allows the semen contained 

 in the seminal vesicles to escape, or often as the result 

 of constipation of the bowels, the seminal fluid being 

 mechanically forced out of the seminal vesicles by the 

 pressure of the hardened contents of the bowels. These 

 discharges may occur with very great frequency, or 

 only at long intervals. When of very infrequent oc- 

 currence, their significance is not very great ; but when, 

 as is sometimes the case, they occur daily, the condi- 

 tion should receive prompt attention. 



Sometimes the discharge of seminal fluid is back- 

 ward into the bladder, and so mixed with the urine that 

 attention is not called to it, and the patient is wholly 

 unaware of the mysterious disease which ^s undermin- 

 ing his health, and goes from one physician to another 

 seeking to find the real cause of his malady and the 

 proper remedy, but obtaining no relief. We have met 

 a number of cases of this sort, in some of which the 

 amount of seminal fluid lost in this way, and the con- 

 stancy of the symptom, quite exceeded any conception 

 which we had previously formed of cases of this sort. 

 The only method of detecting these cases is for the 

 phj^sician to adopt as a routine practice the plan of 

 making a careful microscopical examination of the 

 urine in every case. 



All urethral discharges, of whatever character, 



