Gonorrhea, especially in women, is likely to be very chronic. Emil Noeggerath, who in 1872 published a book[164] which changed the medical doctrine on the disease, said of women, "Once infected, always infected." Norris[165] reports a case where the gonococcus was latent in a man for twenty years, and he then infected his wife and wished to divorce her until he found that he himself was at fault. Sax[166] reported an infection after fourteen years; MacMunn,[167] one after fifteen years. These are exceptional durations in the male for virulence, though not for continuance of the diplococcus. [164] _Die latente Gonorrhoea in weib. Geschlect._ Bonn. [165] _Gonorrhea in Women_, p. 123. Philadelphia, 1913. [166] _Trans. Amer. Urological Assoc._, vol. iii. [167] _Lancet_, November 24, 1906. Neisser, who discovered the cause of gonorrhea, holds that, with the exception of measles, gonorrhea is the most widespread of all maladies. By sterilizing men and women and by abortion it holds down the birth-rate more than any other disease. The number of deaths from the consequences of gonorrhea (pelvic abscess, peritonitis, septicemia, endocarditis, and so on) is enormous. Norris thinks that 12,000 prostitutes die annually from the effects of gonorrhea alone. Woodruff[168] holds that 60,000 is nearer the truth. The estimate, too, is that 50 per cent. of all pelvic inflammatory diseases in women is gonorrheic; and Neisser, Bumm, and Fürbinger hold that from 20 to 50 per cent. of childless marriages are due to gonorrhea. Probably more than 20 per cent. of all the blindness in the world is from the same cause. The Committee of Seven,[169] in 1901, after examining most of the hospital records in New York and hearing from 4750 physicians, estimated that there were more than 220,000 venereal patients in New York City. Bierhoff[170] reckoned that in 1910 there were about 800,000 gonorrheics in that city. In 1906, in Baltimore, there were 3310 cases of the infectious diseases like measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and tuberculosis combined, but 9450 cases of venereal diseases. In New York City, in round numbers, there are annually about 41,000 cases of infectious diseases, excluding the venereal group, but 243,000 cases of venereal diseases--over five times more cases of venereal diseases than of all the other infectious diseases together. Of 12,000,000 persons insured in Germany, 750,000 annually are infected with venereal diseases. In the United States navy between 1904 and 1908, with an average of 43,165 men in the navy and marine corps, there were 32,852 admissions to the hospitals for venereal diseases, and of these 11,526 were cases of gonorrhea. This report is far below the actual numbers, as only men incapacitated for work are included in the list. In the English navy in 1906 the daily number of men rendered inefficient by venereal diseases was 867. In the total relative number of venereal diseases