CHAPTER II. 

 GONORRHEA, 



MICROCOCCUS GONORRHOEA 



General Characteristics. A minute, biscuit-shaped, non-motile, 

 non-sporogenous, non-liquefying, non-chromogenic, non-flagellate, aero- 

 bic, strictly parasitic coccus, not stained by Gram's method, cul- 

 tivable upon special media, and pathogenic for man only. 



All authorities now accept the "gonococcus" as the 

 specific cause of gonorrhea. It was first observed in the 

 urethral and conjunctival secretions of gonorrhea and 

 purulent ophthalmia by Neisser* in 1879. 



Bumm t found other cocci closely resembling the gono- 

 coccus in the inflamed urethra, and points out that neither 

 its shape nor its position in the cells can be regarded as 

 characteristic, but that failure to stain by Gram's method 

 can alone enable us to say with certainty that biscuit-shaped 

 cocci found in urethral pus are gonococci. 



Distribution. The gonococcus is a purely parasitic 

 pathogenic organism. It can be found in the urethral dis- 

 charges of gonorrhea from the beginning until the end of the 

 disease, and often for many months and even years after re- 

 covery from it. After the period of creamy pus has passed, its 

 numbers are usually outweighed by other pyogenic organisms. 

 Wertheim J cultivated the gonococcus from a case of chronic 

 urethritis of two years' standing, and proved its virulence 

 by producing experimental gonorrhea in a human being. 

 The organisms are chiefly found within the pus-cells (Fig. 

 96) or attached to the surface of epithelial cells, and should 

 always be sought for as diagnostic of gonorrhea, as purulent 

 urethritis is sometimes caused by other organisms, as 

 Bacillus coli communis and Staphylococcus pyogenes. 



*"Centralbl. f. d. med. Wissenschaft," 1879, No. 28. 



t " Der Mikroorganismus der gonorrhoischen Schleimhauterkrank- 

 ungen," "Gonococcus Neisser," second edition, 1887. 



t "Archiv f. Gynakologie," Bd. xui, 1892, Heft 1. 



Van der Pluyn and Loag, "Centralbl. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenk.," Bd. 

 xvn, Nos. 7, 8, Feb. 28, 1895, p. 233. 



