McDonough, who was a surgeon at the London Lock Hospitals, noted in 1915 that epididymitis – inflammation of the highly convoluted tube which carries semen from the testis – was extremely common. Gonorrhoea also caused frequent complications. Its description as an instrument of torture sounds justified, even if it was used with local anaesthetic. The Kollman dilator, with its umbrella-like activation was considered essential in chronic cases, known as ‘gleet’. For men, this might include careful insertion of instruments into the urethra to ‘release’ hidden bacteria and prevent strictures where inflammation narrows the urethral canal.

Picture: Getty Imagesīut people who presented to the doctor with well-established infections required more aggressive treatment. Growing antibiotic resistance reinforces the importance of practicing safe sex. Prostatic massage was performed before the irrigation was repeated. These patients with a chronic infection lay down, and the fluid container was raised three meters or more in order to increase the gravitational effect and ensure the pressure was strong enough to reach the bladder. That meant using a warm solution to ensure the sphincter stayed relaxed. In acute cases, irrigation was limited to the first four to six centimetres of the urethra, using a cold solution to stimulate the sphincter to close off the rest of the urethral canal.įor chronic infection, the whole 18 to 22 centimetres of urethra from the penis to the bladder was irrigated. The male patient stood, wearing a waterproof apron through which his penis protruded, while a litre of fluid was held above his head and fed through rubber hosing inserted through the tip of the penis. The birth of syphilis surveillance in Melbourneįrom the 1920s, treatment commonly comprised ‘irrigation’ of these tissues over several days or weeks to wash out pus, and other debris of infection. But the various ways of doing this were pretty brutal by today’s standards. So, what next? If antibiotics are no longer effective, could we ever return to pre-antibiotic treatments?īack then, the focus was on applying antiseptics to the urethra in men and the urethra and cervix in women.

The HIV virus (in yellow) infecting a human T cell (blue).

In fact, an STI can make someone physically more vulnerable to acquiring HIV. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also predicted that untreated gonorrhoea will cause a five-fold increase of HIV transmission because HIV and gonorrhoea are associated with the same kinds of risk-taking behaviours. What’s more, having gonorrhoea once doesn’t prevent you from getting it again. They may continue to have unsafe sex and spread the infection. Up to 80 per cent of women and 15 per cent of men with gonorrhoea have none of the obvious symptoms including genital pain, burning or discharge. In mild infections, diagnosis can be easily missed. While, for many people, the infection will ultimately clear itself, the consequences of superbug gonorrhoea could be terrible, especially on a global scale – untreatable acute and chronic lower abdominal pain, increased infertility, miscarriages, maternal death due to ectopic pregnancy and neonatal eye infections that may cause blindness.

Super gonorrhea symptoms male