Another problem of sex is Venereal Disease. (The word 'venereal' means 'having to do with sexual intercourse' and comes from the name Venus, the Roman goddess of love.) Sexual intercourse itself doesn't cause VD, but engaging in sexual intercourse or heavy petting with an infected person may give it to you. More people have VD in this country today than at any time in the past fifteen-twenty years. This especially true among teenagers and it is very important for everyone who is sexually active to know about it! There are two main veneral diseases, gonorrhoea and syphilis.

Gonorrhoea

Commonly called 'the clap' or 'a dose', gonorrhoea seldom causes death, but if not treated promptly it can often cause sterility and crippling arthiritis. The disease is caused by the gonococcus germ, which can live only in warm, moist places, such as inside the human body, and it usually gets its start inside the vagina or the penis and the rest of the reproduction tract.

Gonorrhoea is epidemic throughout the world today, being the most common serious infectious disease. It is easy for a man to know he has gonorrhoea, because a few days after he has become infected he will notice a painful burning when he urinates and pus will drip from his penis. Without having a special test, it is often impossible for a woman to know she has gonorrhoea. She may have no easily noticeable symptoms at all, since the gonococcus germs usually live and multiply around her cervix, where the tissue is less delicate than that in the urethra and where no urine, with its acid content, passes over the area. The gonococci usually do not spread to the womans urethra.

Thus if a man knows he has contracted gonorrhoea, he should at once tell any woman with whom he has had sexual intercourse, so that she may be examined at once and treated if need be. If she is infected and not treated, the disease will damage her body, and she may transmit it to other sexual partners.

The treatment is simple :- Usually a few shots of penicillin. This will nearly always cure a person but it will not prevent him or her from getting the disease again. There is no immunity. If gonorrhoea is not treated, the germs often spread throughout the body,
damaging the sex organs and the joints. When the body attempts to repair the damage, it may cause scar tissue to block the sperm tubes and tubules in man, or the fallopian tubes in a woman, preventing the sperm or the egg from getting through. In this way gonorrhoea is a major cause of sterility- the inability to have children - in men and women. Gonorrhoea can also damage the eyes and used to be a major cause of blindness in babies born to mothers who wee infected at the time.

Next episode lets discuss about Syphilis