The importance of chancroid in Africa.

THE true incidence of chancroid throughout Africa is unknown, although it is apparent that it is the venereal disease next in importance to syphilis and gonorrhrea, in some places being more prevalent than primary syphilis. Although chancroid is not capable of arresting the development of whole populations, as are gonorrhrea and syphilis by causing sterility and abortion, and although it has no comparable serious sequelre to those of these two diseases, it is a ,painful and sometimes locally mutilating complaint. Bubo formation is common, with the subsequent, interference with the activities of the patient, and a few may lose parts of their genitalia from phagedenic ulceration. In many parts of Mrica, too, patients seeking advice for genital sores are admitted to hospital until the sores have healed. As frequently all genital sores are assumed on clinical grounds alone to be syphilitic, and neoarsphenamine has not yet been universally replaced by penicillin (although. the former drug is largely ineffective in soft sore), many working weeks are lost from these reasons. More serious, however, is that chancroid is an important yardstick by which the efficacy of Western Medicine is judged by the African, and an inadequate treatment for chancroid will result in persons seeking the advice of unqualified herbalists when they have the chancre of syphilis. Also, with the growing activities against the venereal diseases in Africa, a realization of the true part played by chancroid in the causation of genital ulcers is essential for a proper appreciation of the results obtained in the treatment of venereal syphilis, such "syphilis" in the African being a mixture of chancroid and chancre. It is considered, therefore, that a closer investigation of the problem of chancroid in Africa is desirable.