Gonorrhoea in an acute form may be imparted to a woman by a man suffering from acute gonorrhoea; and an uncured male with chronic or latent gonorrhoea may communicate to her the disease in a chronic or latent and sometimes even in the acute form.
1. In the acute form the initial stage of the disease in the female, as in the male, usually lasts from two to five days; occasionally it supervenes rapidly within the first day, or is sometimes delayed until the fourteenth day.
After the initial period has passed the discharge becomes muco purulent and yellow and consists of pus cells and serum. In addition to the destructive work of the gonococci, other pathogenic, or disease generating, microbes rapidly multiply in the devitalized tissues and modify the character of the discharges so that they soon become yellowish green. This simultaneous development of gono cocci and other pus producing microbes is called a "mixed infection", and it was precisely these adventitious organisms which so long baffled the efforts of investigators to isolate the gonococci.
On the decline of the purulent stage the secretion becomes thickened, by the agglutination of the pus cells with mucus, so that yellowish white clumps are present in the urine of women as well as in that of men. In these fluffy clumps called "clap-threads", or by the Germans "Tripper-faden" and in the discharges, and in the rugosities and crypts of the mucous membranes, the gonococci may persist for months or years. Within the first few days following the impure intercourse, or after infection by a diseased husband, there occurs a free, purulent secretion from the vulva, vagina and urethra, i.e., from the external sexual apparatus. The inflammation may remain localized there; but in course of time, as a rule, it spreads to the uterus, Fallopian tubes, ovaries and peritoneal tissues in the pelvis, i.e., to the internal sexual apparatus. So intense may be the course of the disease that the woman may suffer pitiably or die from a purulent peritonitis, or from rupture of a suppurating Fallopian tube.
2. In the chronic, or latent, form the woman may acquire a gonorrhcea without being able to fix any precise date of infection, and indeed she may never be aware of the cause of her illness. The following supposititious case, illustrative of actual ones daily seen by practitioners, is cited by Valentine:
"A man contracts gonorrhcea. After a time all discharge and other evidences of the disease disappear. His physician dismisses him as completely cured.
"Five, ten, or more years later he has almost, if not entirely, dropped from his mind this, with other disagreeable recollections. He marries a healthy, strong girl. The young wife soon begins to fade. Vague pains set in. If her friends love her, she will be twitted with congratulations and advice regarding the presumed coming maternity. Her form, too, suggests such possibility. But by the time when, or before, the child that is to make her still more loved by her husband is expected, it is found necessary to seek professional advice.
"A cyst of the ovary, a Fallopian tube filled with pus or some other dangerous disease, is discovered. An operation, perilous to life, must be performed to save her. If she survive, she will no longer be a woman, for she cannot become a mother. The light of modern microscopy, brought to bear upon the tumor, cyst, tube, or other substance removed, shows gonococci. Bemember that this wreck, but a few short months ago a vigorous, healthy woman, was as chaste as ice, as pure as snow. Remember, too, that her husband presented no sensory evidence of the disease that killed his cherished wife. Killed the word is advisedly employed for, though she live, she is worse than dead; she is not only unsexed but also physically destroyed".
How dismal is the history of many a pure young woman who marries with all the accompaniments of a perfect wedding celebration! From their husbands' latent gonorrhoeas many of them contract conditions which alter their lives and even their characters. They suffer from backaches, leucorrhcea, irregular and painful menstruation, urinary disorders, external inflammatory conditions, localized peritonitis from escape of gonorrhceal pus into the abdominal cavity, enlarged and tender inguinal glands, loss of their healthful beauty, lassitude, hysteria, dread of the marital embrace, sterility, abortions and death.
The latent, or chronic, form would not necessarily be attributed to the husband's fault; the acute form very probably would be.
It is certainly the duty of every man who has had gonorrhoea to abstain from marriage until permission has been obtained from a trustworthy physician; and no individual who expects ever to marry has any right to indulge in sexual impurity.
"If then the young man decides to avail himself of the offers of those women who sell their questionable favors, he exposes himself to infection with syphilis and gonorrhoea, both of which may be communicated to an innocent woman who has the misfortune of marrying him. Syphilis may cause abortions or give rise to the birth of a syphilitic child; gonorrhea leads often to the deplorable condition we have described above, and is a common cause of blindness in the newborn if it does not entail sterility.
"A man may be willing to run the risk of being infected himself, but he has not the right to draw his future wife and his offspring into his own calamity, so much less so as their condition caused by his recklessness is infinitely worse than his own. Many a young man is not only indifferent to, but often proud of having acquired, a disease which sometimes does not inconvenience him more than a cold in his head, and yet this slight disease, which even has a pet name, may cost his future wife her life or result in lifelong blindness of his child".