A text-book on gonorrhea and its complications / by George Luys.

  • Luys, Georges, 1870-1953
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A text-book on gonorrhea and its complications / by George Luys. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [a causes of depopulation, and it is responsible for the many men, and for the sterility of so many women. Owing to the slow, but sure havoc which it causes in the individual, and to Society, gonorrhea deserves the fullest attention of medical men and of public bodies. To aid and to guide them in their campaign against this plague is the object of this book. Our therapy is nowadays so perfect that it is not permissible for a medical man to allow a case of gonorrheal urethritis to go on without curing it. Modern science has made such conquests that one can say without exaggerating that there is no inflammation of the urethra which cannot be cured completely by appropriate treatment. But it should not be for- gotten that this result is only obtained by means of prolonged and pains- taking observations, and that urethroscopy alone enables us to diagnose the local lesions with accuracy, and to apply the sovereign remedy correctly. Without the control of his eye, it is impossible for the medical man to select the best and the most efficacious treatment. It does not follow from the fact that urethroscopy is a wonderful and indispensable means of diagnosis in expert hands that it is a universal panacea for inflamed urethre. The truth is far from this, and hence it is necessary to study the treatment of urethral inflammation in all its details. On the whole, the therapeutic measures recommended in this book have little in common with the routine treatment of former days. An experience of twelve years devoted to the study of these interesting diseases has convinced me of the absolute efficiency of certain remedies, and of their superiority over others which fortunately have become obsolete nowadays. I have therefore avoided a tiresome enumeration of the old methods which prolonged the urethritis instead of curing it, and given a very full description of our modern accurate therapeutic measures which lead to a certain cure. This book contains twelve chapters. The history of gonorrhea I considered of interest. It shows the evolu- tion of our knowledge of the etiology and of the therapy of the disease; how gradually in the course of centuries a state of chaos and darkness was replaced by accuracy and clearness. The following chapters deal with the etiology of gonorrhea, and give a full description of the gonococcus, the usual cause of the malady. They also point out its dangers, and refer to the social struggle against gonorrhea, and to certain legal questions connected with it. As the gonococcus is not the only micro-organism capable of producing an inflammation of the urethra, a further chapter is devoted to these non- gonococcal urethrites. wrecking ” of so