venereal disease

A sexually transmitted disease.

Any contagious condition acquired by sexual intercourse or genital contact. Venereal diseases include chancroid, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, herpes simplex type II, HIV, lymphogranuloma venereum, and syphilis. More commonly called sexually transmitted disease.

Venereal diseases (VD) is the common term for infections spread by sexual contact, and the politically correct term (avoiding the sexist reference to Venus) is Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs). Several of these are epidemic, including genital herpes virus, genital warts (condyloma acuminata), scabies (mites), and the big two: syphilis and gonorrhoea (non-gonococcal urethritis or, if it's an officer, non-specific urethritis). Their impact on armed forces was considerable. In WW I just over one-quarter of the diseases for which British soldiers were hospitalized were venereal.

A soldier's terms and conditions of service, unless he were a devout member of a military monastic order, have rarely demanded of him a life of abstinence and celibacy. Some believe that soldiers noted for their strong religious beliefs had a lower incidence of STDs, but until fairly recent times all armies were fertile cultures for infections and contagions of all types. The concentration of so many men and camp followers promoted the outbreaks of cholera, diphtheria, dysentery, typhoid fever, typhus, bubonic plague—and venereal diseases.

Because the first outbreaks coincided with it, most medical authorities believe that syphilis was introduced to Europe upon the return of Columbus's first expedition to America where they had left smallpox in exchange. However, it may have existed in a less virulent form for centuries and been confused with leprosy At a time when many did not even understand the relationship between sexual intercourse and procreation, it can be of no surprise that the link between the sexual act and diseases transmitted through it was not fully realized. This lack of understanding allowed such diseases to flourish unchecked and, in certain cases, reach endemic proportions.

The first recorded outbreak was in Naples in 1495, whence it spread rapidly across Europe. The virulence of this outbreak argues strongly that, was a new disease attacking a population lacking antibodies. The new ‘malady’ infected the invading army of France's Charles VIII and was just one of the significant consequences of the French Italian wars. The French called it the Neapolitan disease while the latter referred to it as the French disease. What the Swiss and the Spanish, not to mention the papal, forces called it is unknown but probably unprintable. The tendency to attribute unsafe or at least unsavoury sexual practices to one's opponents in war is universal. So is the fact that the prospect of or relief from mortal danger alike increase the desire to fornicate.

Despite the appalling and sometimes decisive casualties that disease could inflict on armies, until the 19th century there was not much military medicine could do to treat them. Prevention was the only option available and the more enlightened military commanders enforced essential hygiene procedures. The better organized and disciplined armies invariably suffered the least. Measures such as collective field cooking and proper sanitary arrangements remain little changed to date, and much of what is now taken for granted, with regard to the principles of hygiene, was pioneered by the military.

The special problem posed by STDs was not so much that they were a source of ribald mockery from one's fellows, but that such treatments as were available included putting a red-hot needle up the urethra. Consequently there was a very low probability of an infected individual reporting it to higher authority. Although Casanova is reputed to have used a condom made of sheep's gut and tied with a ribbon, the general application of that approach to prevention had to await technological advances in the field of elastic materials. Until then, prophylaxis could only be practised by militarizing prostitution. Thus the French and Italians created military brothels under medical supervision (French field brothels endured the siege of Dien Bien Phu), as did the German army with red lights for other ranks' and blue lights for officers' brothels. In WW I the British army experimented with brothels staffed with medically inspected prostitutes: one at Rouen accommodated 171, 000 men in the first year, with only 248 reported cases of VD. In WW II, the British and Americans were more strait-laced, compounding their folly by placing civilian brothels out of bounds, making the contraction of STDs a chargeable offence, or worse still threatening to treat it as a self-inflicted wound. The result was that their soldiers often refused to report infection even after effective treatment became available and their armed forces suffered a higher number of venereal casualties than their continental equivalents. Montgomery was once reprimanded for recommending the application of common sense, and no US general dared to do so.

Only relatively recent advances in medical science, especially with regard to chemical therapies, coupled with wider health awareness and improved personal hygiene, have done much to improve the lot of both soldier and civilian alike. The spirochaete responsible for syphilis was only isolated in 1905 by the German zoologist Fritz Schaudinn. In 1906 the German bacteriologist August von Wassermann developed the first blood reaction diagnostic test and in 1909 the German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich discovered the first effective treatment: the arsenic-containing compound Salvarsan. It was only in 1943 that the antibiotic penicillin was shown to be highly effective and it is still the preferred treatment in the battle against both syphilis and gonorrhoea.

However, in Vietnam penicillin-resistant strains emerged and today STDs that do not respond to antibiotics (including AIDS) are among the most dangerous health problems facing soldiers of all nations. Pre-service and in-theatre screening, counselling from army chaplains and medical officers, and the free issue of condoms, disinfectants, and antiseptics are all measures which appear to have only limited effectiveness. The main problem remains human nature. In Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22, Capt Yossarian USAAF, the central character, is hospitalized after being brought down by ‘a burst of clap while on a low-level mission over a WAC’ (member of the Women's Army Corps). The pun is improved if one understands that the title refers to the fact that anyone who does not wish to fly missions and risk death or injury by flak is clearly sane, hence compelled to continue flying, while anyone who likes to fly such missions is clearly insane, therefore likely to be grounded. A ‘love wound’ incurred in a low-threat encounter leading to hospitalization in relatively comfortable surroundings and away from immediate danger is not unattractive to a reluctant serviceman.

— Peter MacDonald

Sexually transmitted diseases; these diseases are named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love.

Volume of distribution.