Gonorrheal rheumatism.—If the gonorrheal germs get into the blood and find their way to the joints of the bones, the result is gonorrheal rheumatism. This is one of the most painful and difficult diseases to be cured known to medical science.
Ophthalmia.—Should some of this poisonous pus be transferred to his eye or the eye of another, it would cause gonorrheal ophthalmia, a disease of the eye that often results in blindness in a few hours or unsightly sore eyes for life.
Wife and children the greatest sufferers.—If the guilty young man were the only one to suffer, it would not be so serious. His future wife and children may be the greatest sufferers. It is now known that these disease germs may remain for years in a young man’s body in an inactive and weakened state; and that too, after he thinks he is perfectly cured. In this condition he is likely to infect his wife. These weakened germs will now take on new life in her body and produce gonorrheal conditions. She will mistake the disease for leucorrhea and treat herself for a time. During this loss of time, various complications have developed. One or more of her sexual organs are now inflamed and ulcerated. One organ after another may have to be removed by a surgical operation to save her life. Tumors, nodules, and ulcers must be removed by the knife. The doctor feels that it is best to leave the husband, as well as the wife, to believe that the whole trouble is due to the weakness of woman. Perhaps the wife dies under the knife and leaves a husband and children. In preaching her funeral, the pastor tries to console the bereaved by laboring to reconcile Providence and the unfortunate death.
Blind children.—If she becomes a mother before these operations are made, as the child passes from her body it gets some of the gonorrheal germs in its little eyes and in a few hours or days it is totally blind from gonorrheal ophthalmia. Or, if the doctor suspects this trouble and puts a drop or two of a solution of silver nitrate in the eyes of the new-born baby, no serious trouble may come to the child because of the father’s sin. An eminent physician in Germany says that there are 30,000 blind people in Germany because of gonorrheal ophthalmia. No statistics have been kept in this country, but reliable physicians claim that there must be as many as 15,000. What right has a young man to engage in a sin that will cause his wife and child a lifetime of suffering?
Syphilis is by no means as common as gonorrhea, there being only eight to eighteen per cent. of the young men who contract this disease as compared with eighty per cent. who contract the other. The germs that produce gonorrhea have only to come in contact with the mucous membrane for infection to follow.
The germs of syphilis have to reach the blood by means of a sore or small crack in the skin or mucous membrane.
Three stages of syphilis.—Syphilis develops by three stages, known as primary, secondary and tertiary syphilis. If treated promptly and properly during the first stage, it may be cured without great injury following, or danger of return. In other stages a much longer treatment will be required, with many possible complications and dangers. Before the doctor can check the disease it may attack the bones, muscles, arteries and the internal organs. This disease causes 90 per cent. of locomotor ataxia, much of apoplexy, paralysis and sudden deaths long after the disease is supposed to be cured. It is a prolific cause of insanity. The descendants of a syphilitic father or mother are often still-born, die prematurely, or become insane later in life. Syphilis shortens the lives of its victims one-third.
An innocent person can be infected.—By using or handling something used by a diseased person an innocent person may be infected. A person infected with one of these diseases is absolutely unclean and dangerous. There are better reasons for putting such a man in the pesthouse than one who has smallpox.
A certificate of good health should be required.—It will not be long before a young man will have to present a certificate of freedom from these diseases, obtained from a reputable physician, before he is granted a license to be married.
An example.—The President of a college Y. M. C. A. recently said to me, “Five years ago I was in poor health due to a long and excessive practice of the secret vice. I went to a doctor for advice. He suggested that I should occasionally visit the prostitute. I made but one visit. That night I caught syphilis. For five years I have been under the treatment of doctors. I have been to Hot Springs. Doctors tell me that I cannot be cured under two more years of this treatment. Even then, the risk of its return will be so great they say, that I should never think of marrying.” Then he added, “That is what one visit has cost me. Three times in these five years I have planned to commit suicide.”