INFECTIVITY OF THE SPINAL FLUID IN LYMPHOGRANULOMA INGUINALE

Abstract

Because of the usual location of its primary lesion and its close epidemiologic relation to sexual life, lymphogranuloma inguinale must be grouped with the venereal diseases. Whether the infection in human beings leads to a systemic disease or whether it produces only local lesions is of vital importance to its proper evaluation and the planning of appropriate therapeutic measures. It has been shown by numerous experiments that inoculation of infectious material into various animals will frequently produce general dissemination of the virus with the appearance of lesions remote from the site of inoculation.1While numerous reports maintain the frequency of extragenital lesions—skin, joints, eyes, meninges—during the course of the disease in man, no definite proof exists that such lesions are directly ascribable to the virus. On the other hand, the history of the average patient suffering from lymphogranulomainguinale suggests in many respects the presence of a generalized infection.