IS GONORRHEA INCURABLE?

To the Editor:  —The doctrine that gonorrhea in the male is incurable seems, for certain reasons, to be gaining ground among physicians and laymen alike. As one of those who dissent from this belief—which, if erroneous, is fraught with harm—I desire to emphasize the distinction between incurable and uncured.To physicians of the last generation gonorrhea was a "urethritis" only; invasions of extra-urethral structures were "complications." So long as pus issued from the meatus it was assumed to be produced in the urethra; and this innocent canal was tortured with caustics, dilators, knives and urethroscopes without avail. Today we know that the disease is usually urethrovesiculitis, the infection invading vesicles and ampullae in from three to twenty days after the discharge appears; and that from these extra-urethral cavities pus may drain into the urethra and out of the meatus for two or twenty years in spite of any or all