All My Children

There are a number of venereal diseases in America and Western Europe. Those which most people know about are called syphilis and gonorrhoea. Another of these diseases which has become increasingly common in Britain is known by the rather long name of non-specific urethritis. There are a few other rare venereal diseases and other minor conditions which can be caught by contact between the sexual organs, but which do not have effects on health nearly as serious as those resulting from syphilis and gonorrhoea.

In the old days a lot of people used to think that you caught V.D. just by having sexual intercourse with somebody to whom you were not married. Some people had superstitious ideas that marriage conferred immunity from venereal disease. Until the last few years it was in fact the case that venereal disease was unusual and caught mainly from prostitutes. But now, owing to the changes in sexual practices which have taken place recently, gonorrhoea at least is the second most common infectious disease in Britain, and a person is unlikely in fact to catch it from a prostitute, prostitutes being particularly well aware of how to avoid gonorrhoea.

Many young people are curious about how these diseases are caught and how they first originated. They are all infectious diseases caused by small organisms or germs of various kinds. You can catch a cold by breathing in the cold virus which has been sneezed or coughed into the air by somebody else. You may catch food-poisoning by eating food which somebody who has had food poisoning has handled, and whose hands have therefore contaminated the food with the germ. The germs causing venereal diseases are, however, much more delicate. They cannot survive outside the warmth and moisture of the human body. The idea of catching a venereal disease from a lavatory seat, therefore, is totally impossible. Young people often ask if you can catch V.D. by kissing. This can happen only under very rare circumstances. Normally you can only catch a venereal disease by its being passed from somebody who is already infected via the most intimate possible physical contact with another person. This means in the vast majority of cases by sexual intercourse. Anybody who has sexual intercourse with someone who already is infected with a venereal disease is extremely likely to catch the disease, for they are among the most highly infectious diseases in existence. If a person sleeps around obviously he or she has a greater chance of catching a venereal disease, but if they go steady, or wait to have intercourse until after marriage and marry somebody who has never previously had intercourse, then their chances of catching a venereal disease are slight. The point to be quite clear about is that today the young person who sleeps around has a good chance of catching a venereal disease, though it is unlikely to be syphilis.

People want to know how they can tell if they have a venereal disease. One of the problems associated with V.D. is that it is perfectly possible to have one of the diseases without knowing that you have got it, particularly if you are a girl. Syphilis and gonorrhoea produce different symptoms. Both, unlike many other infectious diseases, do not get better of their own accord. In fact, a venereal disease once caught is there for life unless it is treated.

A boy is quite likely to know if he has gonorrhoea. He will have a burning sensation as if passing boiling water when he urinates. He may have a discharge from the urethra which is coloured and smells unpleasant, particularly in the early morning. This is known as the gleet. Later he may have a generalised febrile, or feverish, illness rather like influenza. As the disease progresses the complicated tubes inside his body which serve the purpose of reproduction will become infected and he may become sterile and unable to father a child. Later he may find great difficulty in passing urine.

A girl is quite likely to have gonorrhoea without knowing that she is infected. If she does have symptoms she will have an offensive coloured discharge from the vagina, although of course some discharge is normal in adolescence and there are other causes of mildly infected discharges. In the later stages of the disease a girl may have fever and pain in the lower part of her stomach and it will be at this stage that her reproductive organs are being infected. As with the boy, she may end by becoming sterile and unable to bear children.

Syphilis is extremely rare in Britain, but its incidence has increased alarmingly over the last few years. Initially in either a boy or a girl the first sign is a shallow, pain-free ulcer on some part of the sexual organs. A boy, of course, will be able to see his ulcer, but in the case of a girl it could be inside the vagina or on the cervix and therefore invisible, and, as with gonorrhoea, she may not be aware of being infected. Later the ulcer will disappear and the person who does not know about the venereal diseases will feel a sense of relief and assume that the disease has cured itself. This is not, however, so. What has happened is that the germs have entered the body where the secondary stages of the disease are beginning to develop.

This takes several weeks and may consist of a rash over the chest and back, and sometimes on the arms, and of a febrile illness and aches and pains. Some young people, knowing about this, have confused the many kinds of rashes which teenagers sometimes get with syphilis and been badly and unnecessarily frightened. Later, white ulcers, so-called snail-track ulcers, develop in the mouth. These are filled with the germs of syphilis and are highly infectious, and it is when somebody has these ulcers that they can transmit syphilis by kissing. This secondary stage of the disease will die down and again the patient may assume that they are cured. However, years —often ten or twenty years—later the third or tertiary stage will develop when the syphilis germs will damage the heart, the bones, the brain, and the blood vessels, causing death due to insanity, or to rupture of a blood vessel or to heart failure.

Non-specific urethritis is not nearly as alarming as either syphilis or gonorrhoea but we do not yet know as much about it as we should like to. Its initial symptoms both in a girl and a boy are a discharge from the sexual parts and local irritation.

Obviously if somebody thinks they have caught a venereal disease, and if they have taken the risk of sleeping with somebody who is promiscuous they should bear this in mind as a possibility, they will want to discuss the matter in the greatest possible confidence. Almost all hospitals in Britain have what are known as special clinics to which anybody can go without a doctor’s letter, and usually without an appointment, and receive a test for V.D. and suitable treatment. There is no need to go to the family doctor and there is no need to fear that the matter will be discussed with the patient’s family Anybody who goes to a special clinic will, however, find that the social worker there is anxious to discover where they caught the disease. This is obviously sensible because the person who was the source of infection is liable to infect other people. This process, known as contact tracing, is handled with the greatest delicacy and tact and only with the permission of the patient. It is very important for anybody going to a special clinic, however, to trust the discretion of the social worker and to co-operate in contact tracing.

The treatment of V.D. is simple and relatively painless, and usually consists of a series of injections of antibiotics.

All mothers are tested for V.D. early in pregnancy because doctors are aware that V.D. may affect babies. In the old days it was routine to treat babies‘ eyes at birth in case the mother had gonorrhoea, but this is only done today in Britain if it is known that the mother is infected.

Notices about special clinics for the treatment of venereal disease are often displayed in public lavatories, and most post offices display notices or will answer enquiries. It is natural for anyone to feel worried and ashamed about having to ask for directions, but so serious are these diseases that it is important to summon up the courage to do so.

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