Michael Waugh

Sexually transmitted penile amoebiasis in Iran: a case series

Objectives Four cases of penile amoebiasis (PA) presenting as genital ulceration seen among men who practiced unprotected insertive anal intercourse in Tehran are described. Methods PA was confirmed by observation of motile trophozoites of Entamoeba histolytica from lesions examined by wet mount microscopy. Results Ulcers were solitary, painful, irregular, discharging and increasing in size. Three heterosexuals and one bisexual had practised insertive anal intercourse in the 2u2005weeks before diagnosis. Bilateral inguinal lymphadenitis occurred in one case. Direct examination of lesions was positive for the presence of amoebic trophozoites. Complete resolution occurred after treatment with oral metronidazole 800u2005mg three times daily for 7–10u2005days. Conclusions Clinicians need to be aware of cutaneous amoebiasis in sexually active men who practice unprotected insertive anal sex where intestinal amoebiasis is endemic. Wet mount microscopy is a rapid and useful diagnostic test.

Syphilis: bismuth and the criminalisation of homosexuality

My involvement with STIs started in 1964 as a medical student at Charing Cross Hospital when I volunteered assisting in evening clinics at Martha and Luke clinics at the West London Hospital, Hammersmith. The new chief was J.L. Fluker, an astute clinician. I was 21. The Sexual Offences Act decriminalising homosexual acts in private between two men, both of whom had attained the …

Gender, Sexuality, and Syphilis in Early Modern Venice: The Disease that Came to Stay

Laura J McGough. Published by Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010, pp 202. figs. 3. tables 4. charts 2. ISBN 978-0-333-711941-1 (hardback), 978-0-333-80320-2(paperback).nnAccounts of aspects of Italian history written in English must be among some of the most frequently published from all the European countries. After all, given the circumstances, which scholar would not wish to study for some time in a land of ancient beautiful cities? Thus, I started to review this book with a fair amount of hard-bitten cynicism, but I was more than pleasantly surprised to find it was extremely well researched and it has added much to my corpus of knowledge.nnThe author has done her research for this work thoroughly and taken expert advice not only from literary scholars and art historians but also from a whole group of internationally distinguished American …

The Wages of Sin. Sex and Disease, Past and Present.

This is a profound work describing the impact of venereal diseases and conventional morality in the build up to AIDS. It is written by an American, who has been personally affected by the impact of AIDS. He has written a book on topics in history relating to sex, morality, and infectious diseases, which have had an impact on the public response to AIDS. Throughout, one senses the authors very real loss in what to him and many others have been …

The British Co-operative Clinical Group (BCCG)

Tempus fugit. The British Co-operative Clinical Group (BCCG) was established in 1951 for the immediate purpose of collecting information concerning the venereal diseases from case records available in the United Kingdom. It was due to the perspicacity of one distinguished consultant venereologist (for that is what he called himself), the late Dr R R (Dick) Willcox, who died in 1985, that this group, still flourishing, exists, is independent, finds information on behalf of the specialty of genitourinary medicine in the United Kingdom, and is producing more publications from its numerous projects than ever before. I chaired the BCCG for some years between 1990 and 1995, before handing on to my successor, Dr George Kinghorn ably assisted by Dr Chris Carne, who have kept me informed about recent …

Year book of dermatology 1988

Many of this journals readers practise dermatology, and it behoves those, mainly in the United Kingdom, who do not specialise in skin diseases to know about dermatology. It is also to the detriment of genitourinary medicine that the role of dermatology in its practice has been played down in recent years. At the spring meeting of the Medical Society for the Study of Venereal Diseases held in Lyons in 1971 I showed that a quarter of the patients seen in genitourinary practice had dermatological manifestations of disease. Since that time, with the advent of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease, a working knowledge of dermatology has become still more important. It is a joy to delve into Year book of dermatology 1988. It is a reasonable price, and is cheaper still for residents. Although much of its contents are pure dermatology, at least half of the several hundred abstracts of papers will be useful to genitourinary physicians. Some very useful statistics given at the start of the book include those concerning the recent increase in syphilis in the United States ofAmerica compared with the decrease in other infectious diseases, except for AIDS, and three tables on various aspects of the statistics on AIDS in the USA and world wide to 1987. At the end of the book is a list of key review articles on dermatology related subjects including AIDS, disorders of pregnancy, fungal disorders, retinoids, and treatment. In between are 22 chapters packed with well written abstracts, often with pithy comments on the paper selected. After one article entitled Clinical and microbiological evaluation of 46 episodes of genital ulceration, selected from this journal, is the comment to think that we can miss the diagnosis in one of three cases of genital ulceration is very humbling. This problem will become more severe as sexually transmitted diseases (STD) clinics are absorbed by infectious diseases services at the expense of dermatology. In the future, our trainees will become as inexperienced in diagnosing STD with skin manifestations as the non-dermatologists are. In the section on treatment are some important papers on ketaconazole in fungal disorders, and permethrin in the treatment of lice and scabies. Drug eruptions are dealt with well. AIDS crops up not only in the chapter on viral infections, as do genital herpes and condyloma acuminata, but in chapters such as those on vascular disorders (Telangiectasis of the anterior chest in homosexual men. Fallon T, et al. Ann Intern Med 1986;105:679-82). Genital skin disorders, including Zoons balanitis and lichen sclerosus et atrophicus, are very adequately covered.