GONORRHCEA. 89 



only by contact of this secretion with a mucous membrane susceptible 

 of infection that the complaint can be transmitted from one person to 

 another, or from the mucous membranes of one organ to that of another 

 in the same individual. As in other infectious disorders, between the 

 time of infection and. that of the outbreak of the disease there is a 

 certain interval, known as the period of incubation. The length of 

 this period is from three to eight days. The appearance of a gonor- 

 rhoea as early as twenty-four hours after an impure coitus, or as late 

 as three or four weeks afterward (Simon), if it occur at all, is to be 

 regarded as a rare exception. Credulous persons will hit upon cases 

 where the period of incubation has lasted longer still. Every physician 

 who has had much to do with venereal patients, especially with patients 

 from the better classes of society, will have found out that it is much 

 easier for a .patient to 'confess to excesses perpetrated six or eight 

 weeks ago than to those of which he has been guilty but recently. 

 The more reason he has to be ashamed of himself, so much the more 

 is he 'disposed- to antedate his delinquency. Least of all are married 

 people to be trusted in this respect, and their assurance that " they 

 would just as lief confess to sins of a week's standing as those of six 

 weeks " is not to be relied upon. 



Contact of a mucous membrane with gonorrhceal virus does not 

 always result" in infection. Indeed, the susceptibility to contagion 

 varies greatly in different individuals. Daily experience teaches us 

 that two men may have intercourse with a woman having virulent 

 fluor albus, one of whom may contract gonorrhoea, while the other may 

 escape. We do not know by what causes this predisposition to gon- 

 orrhceal infection is increased or diminished. It cannot be attributed 

 either to the greater or less degree of venereal excitement during 

 coitus, nor to incomplete introduction of the penis, nor to the degree of 

 " acclimatization " of the exposed individual to the person of the other. 

 It is idle to indulge in unsupported theories upon this question. "We 

 do not even know why it is that, of all the various mucous membranes 

 of the human body, only that of the urethra, those of the female gen- 

 itals, the eye, and in some degree those of the rectum, are susceptible 

 of gonorrhceal inflammation, while all others are quite proof against 

 the infection. Even different portions of one mucous membrane ex- 

 hibit different degrees of susceptibility to gonorrhceal poison. Al- 

 though the infecting secretion acts first upon the orifice of the urethra, 

 the gonorrhoea is most apt to develop in the fossa navicularis. 



AKATOMICAL APPEAKANCES. Opportunities of making post-mor- 

 'em examination of patients with gonorrhoea are rare, and it was long 

 ere we could obtain positive knowledge that the seat of gonorrhoea 

 was ttie urethra. In recent cases of the disease the mucous membrane 



