SECTION IV. 



DISEASES OF THE URETHRA. 



ACCORDING to the plan of our book, we omit without notice all 

 affections of the urethra pertaining to the department of surgery, and 

 which are treated of in detail in surgical works, and shall merely de- 

 scribe the inflammation of the urethra. 



CHAPTER 1. 



VIRULENT CATARRH OF THE MALE URETHRA CLAP GONORRHO3A. 



ETIOLOGY. The urethral mucous membrane does not undergo any 

 specific change in gonorrhoea. The process which takes place in it is 

 identical with that which arises in any other mucous membrane, under 

 the action of other irritants, and bears the name of catarrh or blen- 

 norrhcea. Nevertheless, gonorrhoea is a specific disease. Its course 

 distinguishes it plainly from all other catarrhs which affect the urethral 

 mucous membrane, or that of other regions. The difference is all the 

 more especial in an etiological point of view, for a gonorrhoea never 

 arises otherwise than by contagion, in spite of the persistent denial of 

 some authorities, and the lying assertions of shame-faced patients. 



Of the nature of the virus of gonorrhoea we know as little as we 

 do of that of small-pox or other infectious matter ; but we do know 

 that the matter exerts a specific influence upon the system that it 

 always produces a clap, never a chancre or syphilitic ulcer. True, 

 opinions are still divided as to whether this disease is followed by 

 becondary disorders, and by a general implication of the system ; but 

 even authors who still believe in metastatic gonorrhoea and gonorrhoeal 

 constitutional infection now agree that the consecutive diseases are 

 altogether different from the sequelae of syphilis, with which they have 

 nothing in common. The gonorrhoeal virus is a contagium Jixum, its 

 vehicle is the secretion of the diseased mucous membrane, and it is 



