sually cured without apparent loss of
health, has always serious possibilities; it kills about one in two
hundred; it permanently maims one in a hundred; it impairs the sexual
power and fertility of a much larger number; it often produces urethral
stricture, which later may cause loss of health and even of life; and in
many cases it causes chronic pain and distress in the sexual organs,
with severe mental annoyance and depression. The loss of health, time
and money entailed by these sequels and their treatment may far exceed
that occasioned by the original disease.

The prevalent notion among the uninformed that gonorrhoea is a mere
annoyance, "no worse than a cold," is based entirely upon lamentable
misapprehension.

5. The persistence of this disease in the deeper parts long after it is
outwardly cured, leads to the unsuspected communication of the disease
to women with whom the individual may cohabit. Among these women may be
his bride, who thereupon enters upon a period of ill-health that may
ultimately compel the mutilation of her sexual organs by a surgical
operation to save her life. Much of the surgery of these organs
performed upon women has been rendered necessary by gonorrhoea,
contracted from the husband. Should she while infected with this
disease, give birth to a child, the baby's eyes may be attacked by the
infection, sometimes with immediate loss of sight. Probably 25 per cent
of the blindness of children is thus caused.

6. The other serious venereal disease, syphilis, infects the blood and
therewith all parts of the body. For months after infection with this
disease, the individual may communicate it by a kiss as well as by
cohabitation; and articles moistened by his secretions--towels, drinking
glasses, pipes, syringes, etc.--may also convey the infection. While
under proper treatment the disease is not dangerous to life in the
earlier years, yet the possibilities of transmitting the contagion
should forbid marriage for at least three years.

The most serious results of syphilis appear years after its acquisition,
when the individual has been lulled into a false sense of security by
long freedom from its outward manifestations. It attacks all organs of
the body, slowly and insidiously producing the symptoms of consumption,
dyspepsia, liver disease and many other ailments. Since we have at
present no reliable means for proving that one who has acquired the
disease is absolutely cured thereof, physi