Evolution of venereology in India.

The older terminology of ‘venereal diseases’ (VDs) largely has been superseded in the past 50 years by ‘sexually transmitted diseases’ (STDs) and more recently by ‘sexually transmitted infections’ (STIs). To some, venereal diseases came to be viewed as a narrow and pejorative term limited to gonorrhea, syphilis, chancroid, lymphogranuloma venereum and granuloma inguinale and related VD control laws. The term ‘sexually transmitted diseases’ more easily incorporates the many newly discovered sexually transmitted agents and syndromes. [1,2] Sexually transmitted disease (STD) includes diseases that are transmitted by sexual intercourse. Sexual transmission requires the agent to be present in one partner, the other partner to be susceptible to infection with that agent and that the sex partners engage in sexual practices that can transmit the pathogen. Sexually transmitted infection (STI) differs from sexually transmitted disease (STD) in that STD conventionally includes infections resulting in clinical diseases that may involve the genitalia and other parts of the body participating in sexual interaction, e.g., syphilis, gonorrhea, chancroid, donovanosis, nongonococcal urethritis, genital warts, herpes genitalis, etc. STI, in addition, includes infections that may not cause clinical disease of genitals but are transmitted by sexual interaction, e.g. all STDs and hepatitis B, HIV, HTLV-1, etc. Nowadays, the term STI is preferred, since it covers all the diseases that can be transmitted by sexual intercourse. However, for all practical purposes, both STI and STD are used synonymously and in European countries, they come under the specialty of genitourinary medicine.