CHAPTEK XXI. 



GONORRHOEA. 



HISTORY. In no other disease has the suspicion of a specific 

 infective cause been so general and entertained for such a long 

 time as in gonorrhoea. Hallier, Donne, Jonissou, Salisbury, and 

 many others, made diligent search for its contagium, which, by 

 them, was believed to be a living organism. Following Koch's 

 improved method of investigation, Neisser finally discovered the 

 specific microbe in gonorrhoeal pus in the year 1879 (Centralblatt 

 f. d. med. Wissensch., 1879, No. 28). He called the new microbe 

 gonococcus. He described the microorganism as a diplococcus 

 which differed from the other varieties of this species of parasites 

 in being always found in clumps of from ten to twenty, surrounded 

 by a mucous envelope. Neisser's communication was soon followed 

 by a number of exhaustive publications, and to-day the literature 

 on the gouococcus has become quite extensive. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE GONOCOCCUS. The gonococcus always 

 occurs in pairs, and is, therefore, a diplococcus. The cocci appear 

 as hemispherical bodies with their flattened surfaces in apposition, 

 which imparts to the microbe the characteristic biscuit-shaped 

 appearance. The gouococci are found in clusters or clumps upon, 

 or, what is more probable, as Bumm asserts, within the pus cor- 

 puscles of gonorrhoeal pus. Their intracellular location was 

 shown by Bumm by examining pus corpuscles in water : when, 

 after imbibition of water, the cells became swollen, the cocci could 

 be seen between the molecular granules of the protoplasm. The 

 microbes within the corpuscle may become so numerous as to fill 

 the entire space, with the exception of the nucleus. Bockhardt 

 and Haab asserted that they found them, also, inside of the nucleus, 

 but this has not been confirmed by some of the ablest and most 

 careful bacteriologists. 



Legrain (" Eecherches stir les Kapports qu'affecte le Gonococcus 

 avec les Elements du Pus blenorrhagique," Arch, de Physiol. norm, 

 et pathol, 1887, No. 6) on studying the behavior of the cellular 

 elements of gonorrhoeal pus and the gonococci, has found that in 

 the very incipiency of the disease the secretion contains an abund- 

 ance of epithelia and few pus corpuscles; the gonococci are abund- 

 ant on the surface of the epithelia and few in the interior of the 



