Investigation of Non-gonococcal Urethritis by Anaerobic Culture.

Gordon (1943) stated that all cases of urethritis were gonococcal in origin. Mast (1948) thought N.G.U. was a new disease. Viewing the subject from a historical standpoint, Harkness (1950) quoted Luys (1922) to the effect that Aretaeus of Cappadocia in the 1st century A.D. had distinguished between spermatorrhoea and pathological discharges and had recognized a thick white discharge from acute cystitis. A host of British clinicians in the last 200 years, including Neale (1756), Brodie (1818), Stevenson (1823), Abernethy (1826), Parker (1839), Carmichael (1842), and Dawson (1848), have all claimed that gonorrhoea was not the sole cause of urethritis. Not till the end of the 19th century, however, was it suggested that a urethral discharge could be abacterial: Guiard (1897) and Barlow (1899)