Counseling Sheet

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D.

Preventive Medicine

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Venereal disease is on the rise. Lack of information about how to protect oneself and about the nature of the disease, an increase in sexual activity, and a decrease in the effectiveness of antibiotics all join together to cause the increase in venereal disease.

Prevention rather than cure of venereal disease should be the objective of health programs. Abstention from sexual activity should be seriously considered by each young person as a meaningful alternative in this age of free and easy sex. Humans are definitely monogamous. Breaking up with one to whom one has been physically united is always, to those who have any sensitiveness, a painful and scarring experience. Certainly, divorce after marriage is a calamity for the personality and to the happiness, exceeded only by death in the magnitude of its injurious effects on the total being.

Venereal disease must be added to the discomforts and dangers of sex outside of marriage. Both premarital and extramarital sex are dangerous to the happiness of the individual, to the integrity of society, and to the understanding of the meaning of marriage. If one has the idea that the sexual experience is the grand and consuming experience of marriage, one is mistaken. Yet, there are many individuals who never set their sights any higher than this purely sensual experience. One of the reasons why our society has a great misconception on this matter is the idea obtained in teenage years that premarital or extramarital sex is an important experience to be obtained. Not only does it not equip one to be a better spouse, it endangers the entire marriage experience.

Venereal disease is transmitted through interpersonal contact, primarily through contact of the genitals. The germs are usually fastidious in their growth requirements and do not live easily except in the secretions of human beings, and therefore, must be transferred from person to person by direct contact. If there is no genital contact, there is rarely the transmission of venereal disease. Personal hygiene of a high quality, the faithfulness of marriage partners, and the avoidance of contact with those who are infected will go far toward eliminating venereal disease from our society.

Two extremely serious venereal diseases are gonorrhea and syphilis. Both are increasing in incidence. Gonorrhea causes an inflamed lining surface of the urethra in both males and females. It also frequently involves the epididymis and prostate in men, and the vagina and fallopian tubes in women. The disease may occur in other forms, such as urethritis or meningitis. It often leaves scars that cause sterility, difficulty urinating, a pregnancy that occurs in the tubes rather than in the uterus, and other serious problems. The most reliable sign that one has the disease is a discharge from the urethra, the tube through which urine flows; or from the vagina. There may or may not be a high fever. Unfortunately, the disease can cause almost no symptoms in both men and women, making identification and treatment of carriers quite difficult.

Syphilis is also a very damaging, even life-threatening disease. The first phase of syphilis is a painless sore at the point of contact with the infected person, the sore having a central crater and elevated edges. This may heal easily, without treatment, in about two weeks. Then in a couple more weeks, the "secondaries" occur. This is a rash all over the body, or small blisters like chicken pox. The lesions may occur inside the mouth, on the palms, or in the vagina. Again, the evidence of disease clears in about two weeks, without treatment, and one may forget about syphilis until a routine blood test turns up positive, one transmits the disease to a different sexual partner, one's child is born deformed with congenital syphilis, or in 10-20 years a major stroke of illness, insanity, heart and artery disease, or a special abscess occurs in a bone, the brain, or the liver that can permanently destroy the function of that part of the body.

After this brief discussion of the serious consequences of venereal disease, nobody could object to even the most strenuous efforts to insure that one would not contract the disease.