Gonorrhœal pus is infectious, as is implied by the Mosaic Laws of Purification (Leviticus Ch. XV.), and the malady is communicated by coition, as is seen from the words of _Galen_,—p. 428. But as early as the Fourth Century the idea was prevalent that the _conjunction of the stars_ was not devoid of influence, as such or such a conjunction might from a man’s very birth determine that _the individual was to die of gonorrhœa_. This at any rate is maintained by _Julius Firmicus Maternus_,[321] who lived in the time of Constantine the Great. The disease has to be carefully distinguished from the nocturnal pollutions,[322] that are at times one of the sequelae of gonorrhœa.
The treatment is, according to _Aretaeus_, at the commencement that for an ordinary rheum or flux, by keeping the parts affected cool, in order to counteract the flow of the humours to them; by degrees going on to a heating and at the same time desiccating procedure, then the application of fresh wool to the part, the employment of friction, embrocations of _ceratum rosaceum_ or _oinanthinum_ with white wine, olive oil with melilot, marjoram, rosemary, poultices of barley-meal, saltpetre and dyll, but above all rue, with the addition of honey or, according to _Celsus_, vinegar; as further treatment, stimulating cataplasms, of a strength to redden the skin or even to bring out pustules on it, so as to draw off the afflux of the humours, or else as an alternative, plasters of the nature of the _emplastrum viride_ (green plaster), of _baccae lauri_ (laurel berries). As for internal treatment, the patient should drink decoctions of: _semen lactucae_ (lettuce juice), _cannabis_ (hemp), _rad. orcheos_ (orchis root), _nymphaeae_ (waterlily), _halicacabi_ (bladder-wort), etc.; and take _castoreum_ (beaver oil), or the antidotes of _Symphon_, _Philo_, or _Bestinus_, which are prepared from _viper’s flesh_. In case of very profuse discharge, the patient should be directed to drink hard red wine; if he is acrid with bile (χολωδέστερον καὶ δριμύτερον,—over-bilious and acrid), lukewarm baths are brought into requisition (Alexander of Tralles). On one point all authorities are agreed, that the main thing to depend on is diet. Both food and drink, says Celsus, must be cold, a precaution Themison also recommended in satyriasis, whereas Caelius Aurelianus denounces it. The patient must not indulge in semen-forming matters, such as cause flatulency, but take nourishing food, flesh of animals but not fish, a little light wine with it, for the constant ejaculation is weakening; he should be careful as to resting,[323] lie on a cool bed, either on the right side or the left (Paulus Aegineta), not on the back (Celsus).