[Report 1968] / Medical Officer of Health, Nottingham City.

  • Nottingham (England). City Council.
Date:
1968
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1968] / Medical Officer of Health, Nottingham City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/162 (page 17)
    Recent trends are obviously not very satisfactory, with certain exceptions. The incidence of late syphilis continues to fall. Only one case of infantile syphilis has been recorded in Nottingham since 1964. Graphs numbers 1 and 2 show the incidence of syphilis and gonorrhoea for the Nottingham area over the years 1964-1968 compared with 1954. Graph number 3 shows the total number of new patients referred to the clinic over the same period and again compared with 1954. Although the number of patients from both the city and the larger Nottingham area with syphilis and gonorrhoea has decreased over the past five years, the number with diseases which are some¬ times sexually transmitted, such as genital warts (see graph 4), vaginal thrush, scabies and so on continues to rise. Another import¬ ant source of disease in young men is non-gonococcal urethritis, which is now commoner than gonorrhoea. The most marked increase in new patients, and this includes gonorrhoea, is in young people, especially young girls in the 15-19 age group. It will be noted that there is a big difference between the number of new referrals and the total number of all the cases of syphilis and gonorrhoea. The balance constitutes numerically, and in other respects as well, quite a large proportion of the work of the clinic, one of the important aspects of which is the elimination of venereal disease in people who might have it. Some of this group come of their own accord, some are referred by general practitioners and other hospital departments, and some are seen as a result of the investi¬ gations that necessarily follow the discovery of any case of venereal disease. There are a number of patients with minor complaints which, whilst not venereal in the accepted sense of the word, are conveniently treated in the Department. And, finally, each year quite a large number of patients are dealt with who have Anxiety states’ of varying degrees of severity, associated with the fear of venereal diseases and with sexual conduct generally. Some of these, fortunately, can be quite easily reassured, others with more difficulty; but in most of them mental health can be restored, and thus potential psychiatric casualties prevented. In a few the fear is a manifestation of true psychiatric disease and these are referred to the appropriate department after venereal disease has been eliminated. CONCLUSION The present position with regard to venereal, or sexually trans¬ mitted, diseases in the Nottingham area is not entirely satisfactory. Early infectious cases must be traced, diagnosed and adequately treated as soon as possible if the present trend upward in numbers is to be reversed. Although the infected patients themselves can sometimes help by persuading their consorts to attend for treatment, many more cases would be treated by an improved method of tracing through social workers.