found its natural habitat in the
inter-cellular structure of the genital mucus, from which it cannot
readily be dislodged, and from which it may invade other tissues. It may
remain in a state of latency for an indefinite time; then transferred to a
new field, it may resume its original activities. While in this stage of
latency it is difficult to destroy. At this time it is more likely to be
further disseminated, as the patient, ignorant of the condition, is more
likely to convey the disease, which so often occurs in married life after
a long forgotten infection.

The gonococcus (the microbe of gonorrhea) is a pus--producing bacterium,
occurring in pairs, resembling in form two coffee grains, generally with a
distinct interval of separation. Although its natural habitat is the
mucous membrane lining the genito-urinary tracts it may invade the
muscular and serous and other tissues. If often affects the Fallopian
tubes and ovaries and the serous lining of the pelvic and abdominal
cavities. The deeper sub-mucous tissues of the uterus and the male
genito-urinary tracts are also frequently involved, it being sometimes
impossible to eradicate it from these deeper retreats. From these deeper
tissues it is more commonly taken up by the circulation and deposited in
distant parts, frequently in the joints. When it becomes thus
systematically disseminated, the so-called secondary or metastatic lesions
are almost as numerous, though not as virulent, as syphilitic infection.
Recent pathological researchers have found that occasionally the
gonococcus becomes the causative factor in inflammations of the muscles,
tendons, and glands, and in inflammatory conditions of the lungs, kidneys,
heart, and even the brain, spinal cord, and the serous membranes
enveloping these great cranial and spinal viscera.

The individuality and characteristics of the syphilis microbe were not
positively determined until in 1905, Schaudinn, of Germany, convinced the
medical world that it was a spiral, corkscrew-like organism, from a
quarter to one millimeter in thickness, and from four to twelve
millimeters in length. It is not so discriminating as the gonococcus in
its points of inoculation, nor is it as vulnerable to attack; and it is
vastly more destructive to the tissues invaded. It spares no tissue in the
human frame, and resists destruction by any known drugs of vegetable
origin. When in a latent state its presence was often impossible to
determine un