An infant or child of either sex can as readily be infected as an adult if gonococci are inoculated on any of its mucous membranes, e.g., the sexual organs, eyes, mouth, nose, rectum, etc. In certain instances wicked nurses have taken the grossest liberties with helpless children and contaminated them with a secret disease, whose true nature very naturally might be unsuspected by either parents or physician.
But these rare cases are of minor importance in comparison with the terrible and frequent gonorrrhoeal infection of infants eyes. This inoculation of the new-born infant usually occurs during its birth through the infected maternal passages, and is called "ophthalmia neonatorum".
A German accoucheur, Professor Crede, of Dresden, won for himself immortal renown by giving to the profession, in the early eighties, a method of treatment which rendered it possible almost to eliminate the terrors of this fearful affection in new-born babes. In his obstetrical wards he found that the infants' eyes could almost invariably be saved from contamination if, immediately after birth, a solution of nitrate of silver, two grains to ten grains to the ounce, were instilled into both eyes, whether there appeared any need of it or not.
At the present time these preventive instillations are uniformly employed in every maternity hospital in the civilized world, and it is considered a great reproach to the medical attendants and nurses if a single case of ocular infection occur. In Professor Saenger's clinic in Leipsic, in 1879, forty per cent of the infants born of gonorrhceal mothers were affected with ophthalmia neonatorum.
But after Crede's method was instituted, the proportion of infection was reduced to two per thousand. Midwives preside over the births of a vast number of children, and the state is unfortunately too lax in granting them licenses. As a result there is yet a great amount of blindness from this cause, although the simple means of preventing it are well recognized.
"If justification were needed for the discussion of this matter, it would be found in the statistics of the German Empire for 1894. These show that of the women who died of uterine or ovarian diseases, eighty per cent were killed by gonorrhoea. They further show that of children who became hopelessly blind, after having been born with healthy eyes, eighty per cent went into a life of darkness from gonorrhoea".
The blessings of sight are thus denied to many a poor child through the careless apathy of its natural protectors.
NOTE. It is possible that the non-professional reader may receive the impression that gonorrhoea always causes the results described in this chapter. These occur in but a part of the cases.
By no means every man who has had gonorrhoea infects his wife in later years. The idea that this must occur would cause needless suffering to many men. It certainly is not the author's intention to convey such an impression.
But the danger is very real and very great and it is surely not going too far to insist that no man who has ever had the disease has a right to marry until assured after examination by a competent expert that he may safely do so.