Treatment of Acute Gonorrhea.
The very first request a gonorrheal patient addresses to a physician is to stop the discharge as soon as he can. Should the physician comply with this request, he would show by doing so not only a complete ignorance of the subject, but he would also do a great deal of harm to the patient himself by driving the disease inside instead of outside. The popular fear of a discharge is based on the ignorance of the fact that the discharge in Gonorrhea, like many other symptoms, such as fever, cough, vomiting, etc., in other diseases, are not harmful by themselves, and that in a certain stage of the disease they serve a useful purpose of helping the human body to get rid of the different poisons and disease-producing germs. So in Gonorrhea the thick, greenish yellow discharge helps along the Nature to throw off and to eliminate Gonococci, and until this purpose is accomplished, to check a discharge is not only unnecessary, but absolutely harmful. Therefore, in the early stage of Gonorrhea intelligent treatment calls for injection with antiseptic drugs that kill Gonococci and rather stimulate a discharge than check it. Only later, in from three to four weeks, when the character of the discharge shows that all Gonococci are already eliminated, and that therefore the discharge has outlived its usefulness, only then the physician is justified in giving injections with the binding or astringent drugs, that check and gradually stop the discharge.
Ignorance or a deliberate violation of this rule in a foolhardy attempt to make a short cut to a cure has caused, in thousands and thousands of cases, a penetration of Gonorrhea into the deeper organs and has led to numberless complications and injurious aftereffects.
The injections can be started usually at once, with the exception of the few very acute cases, where the swelling and pains are so severe that it is necessary to wait a few days before starting the injections. It is in these cases particularly that the use of the internal drugs, usually mild antiseptics, is advisable until local treatment can be started. In making injections, one point should never be overlooked: this is, to urinate each time before making an injection; failure to do this has driven many gonorrheas into the deeper parts.