Why is gonorrhea sometimes called "the clap"?

Answer 1

The nickname of the clap refers to a treatment that used to clear the blockage in the urethra from gonorrhea pus, where the penis would be 'clapped' on both sides simultaneously. This gonorrhea treatment is rarely used today, however the nomenclature remains.

Answer 2

"For one, it is believed that clap refers to the old French term, ‘clapier’, which means brothel. Before, gonorrhea was easily spread through these places. However, there is also another theory, which referred to how the infection was treated. To treat gonorrhea, it involved slamming a heavy book or any object down the penis so that the discharge would come out. This might not sound like a good treatment since it involved smashing the penis.

Another probable reason why gonorrhea was referred to as clap is that it was a bastardized form of a word. During the World War days, gonorrhea was very common among the GIs. It was said that the personnel who treated the patients would refer to the GIs as having the collapse. As a bastardized form of the word collapse, it was called the clap."

I like the last theory, especially since it has 'the' as part of the complete term. 'the collapse'...'the clap'

Answer 3

Alli, thank you for your SHORT, sweet and very well explained answer! Purple, where in your long winded answer is anything having to do with what the op asked about why gonorrhea is called the clap? Not only was your answer way too long, not to the point, but boring as well!

Answer 4

What Is The Clap

Answer 5

For the best answers, search on this site https://shorturl.im/4WC6P

Look, old people just need to talk because they figure they're gonna be dead soon, so if they keep talking and talking and talking it might prolong their lives because nobody has ever heard of somebody dropping dead while in the middle of blabbering on about some rumor they heard.

Answer 6

Because it makes you clap your hands in pain, I thought..

Answer 7

a clap, hahaha

Answer 8

I just learned something new.

Answer 9

Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser (January 22, 1855, Schweidnitz - July 30, 1916, Breslau) was a German physician who discovered the causative agent (pathogen) of gonorrhea, a strain of bacteria that was named in his honour.

Neisser was born in the Silesian town of Schweidnitz (now Świdnica, in Poland), the son of a well-known Jewish physician, Dr. Moritz Neisser. After he completed the elementary school in Münsterberg, Neisser enrolled in the St. Maria Magdalena School in Breslau (now Wroclaw, in Poland). In this school, he was a contemporary of another great name in the history of medicine, Paul Ehrlich. He obtained the Abitur (habilitation) in 1872.

Neisser began to study medicine at the University of Breslau, but later moved to Erlangen, completing his studies in 1877. Initially Neisser wanted to be an internist, but he didn't find a suitable place. He found work, however as an assistant of the dermatologist Oskar Simon (1845-1892), concentrating on sexually transmitted diseases and leprosy. During the following two years he studied and obtained experimental evidence about the pathogen for gonorrhea, Neisseria gonorrhoeae. He was only 21 years old.

Neisser was also the co-discoverer of the causative agent of leprosy. In 1879 the Norwegian physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen gave to young Neisser (who had visited him in Norway to examine some 100 leprosy patients) some tissue samples of his patients. Neisser successfully stained the bacteria and announced his findings in 1880, claiming to have discovered the pathogenesis of leprosy. There was some conflict between Neisser and Hansen, because Hansen had failed to culture the organism and demostrante unequivocally its link to leprosy, although he had observed the bacterium since 1832.

In 1882 Neisser was appointed professor extraordinarius by the University at the tender age of 29, and worked as a dermatologist in the university hospital of Breslau. Later he was promoted to the director of the hospital. In the following year he married Toni Neisser, née Hoffmann.

In the years 1905 and 1906 Neisser travelled to Java, in order to study the possible transmission of syphilis from apes to humans. He later cooperated with August Paul von Wassermann (1866-1925) to develop the famous diagnostic test for detecting Treponema pallidum infections, and also in the testing of the first chemotherapeutic agent for syphilis, Salvarsan, which was discovered by his former school fellow Paul Ehrlich in 1910. In 1907, Neisser was promoted to professor ordinarius of dermatology and sexually-transmitted diseases at Breslau.

As a scientific leader, Neisser was also very active. In the field of public health, he promoted vigorously preventive and educational measures to the public, and the better sanitary control of prostitutes, in order to combat venereal diseases. He was one of the founder of the Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten (German Society for the Fight Against Venereal Diseases) in 1902, and of the Deutsche Dermatologische Gesellschaft (German Dermatological Society) in 1888.

At the age of 61 years, Professor Albert Neisser died of septicemia on July 30th, 1916, in Breslau.

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