The Health Master

by Samuel Hopkins Adams

“First, gonorrhoea, because it is the worse of the two. That is not the accepted notion, I know: but the leading specialists one by one have come around to the view, that, by and large, it does more damage to humanity than the more greatly dreaded syphilis. For one thing, it is much more widespread. While there are no accurate statistics covering the field in general, it is fairly certain that forty per cent of all men over thirty-five in our larger cities have had the disease at some time.”

“That doesn’t seem possible,” broke in Mr. Clyde.

“Not to you, because you married early, and your associations have been largely with family, home-loving men. But ask any one of the traveling salesmen in your factory his view. Your traveling man is the Ulysses of modern life, ‘knowing cities and the hearts of men.’ I think that you’ll find that compared with the ‘commercial’ view, my forty per cent is optimistic.”

“But it is easily curable, isn’t it?” asked Mrs. Clyde, insensibly yielding to the Health Master’s matter-of-fact tone, and finding, almost insensibly, that her interest in the hygienic problem had overcome her shamed reluctance to speak of it.

“Often in the early stages. But it is very uncertain. And once firmly fixed on the victim, it is one of the most obstinate and treacherous of diseases. It may lie dormant for months or even years, deceiving its victim into thinking himself wholly cured, only to break out again in full conflagration, without warning.

“This is the history of many ruined marriages. Only by the most searching tests can a physician make certain that the infection is stamped out. Probably no disease receives, on the average, such harmful treatment by those who are appealed to to cure it. The reason for this is that the young man with his first ‘dose’—that loathsome, light term of description!—is ashamed to go to his family physician, and so takes worthless patent medicines or falls into the hands of some ‘Men’s Specialist’ who advertises a ‘sure cure’ in the papers. These charlatans make their money, not by skillful and scientific treatment, of which they know nothing, nor by seeking to effect a cure, but by actually nourishing the flame of the disease, so as to keep the patient under their care as long as possible, all the time building up fat fees for themselves. If they were able, as they claim, to stop the infection in a few days at a small fee, they couldn’t make money enough to pay for the scoundrelly lies which constitute their advertisements. While they are collecting their long-extended payments from the victim, the infection is spreading and extending its roots more and more deeply, until the unfortunate may be ruined for life, or even actually killed by the ravages of the malignant germs.”

“I didn’t suppose that it was ever fatal,” said Clyde.

“Oh, yes. I’ve seen deaths in hospitals, of the most agonizing’ kind. But it is by virtue of its byproducts, so to speak, that gonorrhoea is most injurious and is really more baneful to the race than syphilis. The organism which causes it is in a high degree destructive to the eyes. Newborn infants are very frequently infected in this way by gonorrhoeal mothers. Probably a quarter of all permanent blindness in this country is caused by gonorrhoea. The effect of the disease upon women is disastrous. Half of all abdominal operations on married women, excluding appendicitis, are the results of gonorrhoeal infection from their husbands. A large proportion of sterility arises from this cause. A large proportion of the wives of men in whom the infection has not been wholly eradicated pay the penalty in permanently undermined health. And yet the superstition endures that ‘it’s no worse than a bad cold.’”

“There is no such superstition about syphilis, at least,” remarked Clyde.

“No. The very name is a portent of terror, and it is well that it should be so. The consequence is that the man who finds himself afflicted takes no chances, as a rule. He goes straight to the best physician he can find, and obeys orders under terror of his life. Thus and thus only, he often is cured. Terrible as syphilis is, there is this redeeming feature: we can tell pretty accurately when the organism which causes it is eliminated. Years after the disease itself is cured, however, the victim may be stricken down by the most terrible form of paralysis, resulting from it.”