gonorrhea was an injection of either mercury or silver nitrate

into the penis. Often this was done daily for months. Silver
nitrate tablets (called mercury pills) were mass produced by
the Bayer Company up until World War I. These tablets were
to be taken for life and Bayer made a fortune on them. Other
“treatments” included bleeding the penis by cutting its sides
with a scalpel. There was also the “smoking cure” for gonor-
rhea, which involved a man entering a wooden box contrap-
tion that only allowed his head out. “Purifying” fumes, mostly
from burnt arsenic, were pumped into the box and over the
naked sufferer’s body. There was also a plethora of snake oil
salesmen traveling around Britain and the US promoting their
cures in medical traveling shows. Many popular sodas of today
have their origins in these dubious concoctions.
Prevention was advocated by many reformers and medi-
cal professionals throughout the 19th century. The first rubber
condoms and “bonnets” (condoms that only fit over the head
of the penis) were introduced in the US in 1855. They were
often as thick as a modern bicycle tube and had a seam run-
ning up their length, so they were not very popular with men
(though there were reports that some women liked the feel of
them). The Comstock Laws, which made it illegal to send any
“obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious” materials through the mail,
including contraceptive devices and information, also made it
impossible to ship or advertise the “Peter coats” and thus their
use was limited. One Union captain did order twenty gross of
the product and had them issued to his men.
In 1879, a German doctor and researcher named Albert
Ludwig Neisser discovered the bacteria (Neisseria gonorrhoeae)
that caused gonorrhea and promptly named it after himself.
He was a reformer and an enthusiastic believer in the inocula-
tion of diseases. He convinced the Austrian Government to
. 24 .