Chlamydial infection. Isolation of Chlamydia from patients with non-specific genital infection.

Abstract

The aetiology of non-specific genital infection continues to excite widespread interest. When the specific causes of non-gonococcal urethritis in men (trichomonal, candidal, and herpetic infections, mechanical irritants, and bacterial infection secondary to disease elsewhere in the genito-urinary tract) have been excluded, there remains a large number of men with 'non-specific' urethritis (NSU) for which no cause can be identified by conventional methods. There are epidemiological reasons for regarding NSU as a sexually transmissible disease (Boyd, Csonka, and Oates, 1958), and because of this it is assumed that the causative agent, or agents, may also infect the female genital tract, although the clinical features of such infection cannot be described with any certainty.