94: DISEASES OF THE URETHRA. 



with his wife, but communicated a gonorrhoeal ophthalmia to her and 

 to his child, whereby both mother and child lost their sight, the man 

 escaping. That the inflammation of the joints above referred to ac- 

 tually stands in genetic relation to gonorrhoea may be inferred from 

 the fact that it occurs in individuals who have not been exposed to 

 any other cause of disease ; that it attacks patients who have never 

 suffered from such symptoms before, and who never have them after- 

 ward, and that it sometimes recurs with every gonorrhoea which the 

 patient contracts, and disappears as the gonorrhoea subsides. This 

 arthritis has no particular effect upon the progress of the main disease, 

 nor do the anatomical lesions of the affected joint, or the symptoms 

 and termination of the affection, present any peculiarity. The seat 

 of gonorrhceal arthritis is almost always in the knee, more rarely the 

 foot or hip-joint, never in the joints of the upper extremity. 



TREATMENT. The only reliable prophylactic measure which I can 

 recommend is the avoidance of all danger of infection. I do not feel 

 called upon to make further suggestions for the benefit of dissolute 

 men, who merely desire to continue their irregularities unpunished. 



We shall spare ourselves any detailed enumeration of the various 

 methods and means employed in the treatment of gonorrhoea, and con- 

 fine ourselves to a description of the most important and desirable 

 ones. 



The best therapeutic results are to be obtained in a perfectly recent 

 gonorrhoea before the symptoms have become severe, as it then gen- 

 erally can be cured in a few days. In order that the number of trac- 

 table cases of this kind may be increased for it is only now and then 

 that we see one we should make all our patients aware that the dis- 

 ease is continually increasing in extent and violence, so that each day 

 of delay only makes it worse. Such opinions, delivered by physicians 

 who have the confidence of that portion of the public among whom 

 gonorrhoea is most commqn, have marked effect. It is scarcely 

 credible how coolly and with what cynicism these people talk of their 

 debaucheries and their consequences, what an extensive knowledge of 

 the subject is shown by some of the laity, and how much one can learn 

 from them. For instance, in Magdeburg, where the innumerable com- 

 mercial travellers of the various mercantile houses meet annually at the 

 hotels, report is always made as to whose pox has relapsed, and who 

 remained cured, and what injections have answered the best for gon 

 orrhcea, etc. Only a short time after I had begun to prescribe injec 

 tions of tannin hi recent claps, where the symptoms were still trifling 

 (and I had been very successful with this treatment), the number of 

 recent gonorrhoeas which sought my aid multiplied considerably. 1 

 usually ordered three powders, each of which contained half a drachm 



