How does one catch gonorrhoea?

[Bookbox]

? C Africa
Thorn(cliff-?) or ending in 'gh' 

W C Africa (= West Central Africa)
Shorncliffe (? odd spelling? A large military base near Folkestone, Kent)

[Maiden Stone]

Curragh

Long article  "The Curragh Army Camp" in "History Ireland"
https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/the-curragh-army-camp/
The section "The camp becomes permanent" mentions "She-barracks" where some wives & women lived. If they were left behind when their men moved on, some fell into prostitution. Next section is "Curragh wrens" who were prostitutes. They lived in hovels. There were encampments of "wrens" outside some other garrisons in Ireland. Some became "wrens" because they were made destitute by the Great Famine of 1840s. A Lock Hospital for women with VD opened in Kildare in 1869.

Article about Curragh "wrens" and "She-barracks" in Newbridge, County Kildare in newspaper "Irish Times" 27th March 2019. Includes 1874 photo of military encampment at the Curragh. There were "wren" women all over Ireland.

1862 parliamentary committee to enquire into VD in armed forces. Resulted in Contagious Diseases Acts 1864, 1866, 1869. The Acts applied to certain ports and army towns & bases, including the Curragh, Cork and Cobh, places where there were huge numbers of troops. Women suspected of having disease could be detained in hospital or sent to prison.
 Some prominent women including  Florence Nightingale, Harriet Martineau and Josephine butler campaigned against the Acts and for their repeal. Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts was formed 1869 and fielded a candidate in the general election.

Westmorland Lock Hospital in Dublin was founded late 18thC. "Irish Times" article 9th Nov. 2018. "Syphilis and gonorrhoea were rife in 19th century particularly among soldiers."   

[Rena]

My OH was in the forces and it was common knowkledge that only "Other Ranks" caught Venereal Disease from the opposite sex.   Officers caught it from toilet seats.

Several years ago there was a programme where a doctor was explaining to an amateur family history researcher the reason why so many children born to a couple in her tree had died and why a few had survived.   Apparently there was a classic pattern to child survival when parents had VD..

[Annie65115]

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gonorrhoea/
Sex, or as foetus.  "The bacteria cannot survive outside the human body for long." "The bacteria that cause gonorrhoea are mainly found in discharge from the penis and in vaginal fluid."

You're confusing gonorrhoea and syphilis. The latter can infect a foetus in the womb, but gonorrhoea isn't passed on to unborn children.

However it can cause a very nasty eye infection, which could lead to blindness, if the mother was infected at the time of birth and the baby picked up the infection by direct contact in its eyes during the birth.

[Annie65115]

It is a sexually transmitted venereal disease .
ie by intercourse not using any protective contraception.
Highly contagious , usually men got it from women who were prostitutes ,or women getting it from men who have visited such women ,then go home to their wives!

Any woman can catch gonorrhoea - it just takes an infected man to give it to her. So not just prostitutes.

Very common in the British Army in France in WW1, not that The Germans were immune!

Men can also catch it from each other through gay sex, and I'm sure (although it's never been acknowledged formally) that that also happened in the trenches, and indeed in any other all-male environment when the opportunity arose.

Sulphides aren't much used these days --- too many adverse reactions.A lot of gonorrhoea across the world is resistant to penicillin these days too. There are other antibiotics with a better chance of cure.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gonorrhea/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20351780

DOI: I have in the past worked as a doctor in a sexual health clinic!

[BumbleB]

Perhaps the OP could come back to comment on the responses!

[Viktoria]

Annie, you have ignored my last statement “ then go back to their wives”.
Meaning a perfectly innocent woman can be infected by her husband if he has has had unprotected sex with an infected woman ,which was often a prostitute.
What did you not understand in that statement.?
Viktoria.

[BumbleB]

Annie, you have ignored my last statement “ then go back to their wives”.
Meaning a perfectly innocent woman can be infected by her husband if he has has had unprotected sex with an infected woman ,which was often a prostitute.
What did you not understand in that statement.?
Viktoria.

Are you absolutely sure that it was that way round?

[Annie65115]

Annie, you have ignored my last statement “ then go back to their wives”.
Meaning a perfectly innocent woman can be infected by her husband if he has has had unprotected sex with an infected woman ,which was often a prostitute.
What did you not understand in that statement.?
Viktoria.

I suspect I understand you perfectly, Viktoria, but I really dislike the implication that the wife is "perfectly innocent" and a woman who may have been paid for sex is something else. Women, when denied the opportunity to earn a decent living, have always had to do whatever they can to keep themselves and children fed; being a sex worker is not usually a chosen profession when alternatives exist and I don't think it should attract opprobrium. I think it's also worth bearing in mind that wives had affairs whilst husbands were away, and that not all sexual activity is consensual, particularly in war zones where rape has always been weaponised.

Or, the short answer, I don't like implied discrimination against people according to their level of sexual activity.