Sexual Health Week 4th – 10th August 08

As I looked into the columns of that august organ ‘Metro’ during a spare moment it came to my attention that this is ‘Sexual health week’. This is promoted by the ‘fpa’ (formerly a worthwhile body known as the ‘family planning association’) under the dubious slogan ‘It’s my right!’ But what the hell, any excuse to talk about disease, for as a misanthropic pathologist once told me ‘it is the only truly wholesome aspect of humanity’, and one of the most interesting of diseases is syphilis.

Said to be brought back from the new world by the Spaniards, though there is doubt about this, it is a disease that can affect every system in the body, brain eyes skin and even bones as well as the naughty bits. Known as the great mimicker by the late 1990’s it had become pretty rare especially those late manifestations beloved of post graduate examiners.

Syphilis is the exception to the rule of VD that you can’t catch it without intimate contact – the rash of secondary syphilis is very infectious!

But you can’t keep a good disease down and a recent study has shown that rates have risen by about 3 times since the late 90’s, largely amongst ‘men who have sex with men’ (gays) and ‘high risk heterosexuals’(swingers) -they are a pretty PC lot these clap clinic docs.

Just in case any of you are worried about the bumping into the latter category on a Wednesday evening a member of Dark Peak who has made a detailed study of the phenomenon supplied me with this map of places he thinks you ought to avoid:

For those of you who feel unable to follow Dr Bobs advice that continence is the only path to ‘sexual health’ here are two suggestions: