Introduction
ONE OF THE characteristics of our time is the desire to know. From all sides and from all groups of people of all ages comes a clamor for facts. For many generations medicine and surgery were Delphic mysteries, not to be revealed except to the initiated. But in the quarter century since the first bout of this war for human freedom all this has changed. Instead of the old hush-hush about many of the functions of the body and the diseases which attack it, a searchlight has been thrown on these matters. Today everybody is endocrine- and vitamin-conscious. Most Americans are more familiar with the setting and scenery of the alimentary canal than with the great gut of Panama.
Sometimes, to one like myself who has been trained in the older, more conservative school, this interest is more than a little disconcerting. As, for example, when a beautiful young woman comes up to you at a cocktail party and says with a flutter of her eyelashes, "Oh, Admiral Oman, so you are a Navy doctor? Then won't you tell me something about venereal diseases?"
One day a very lovely, intelligent, and talented movie actress called on me. She was most interested in the health problems we have to meet, and we discussed clothing, food, amusements, and a vast variety of subjects. What was apparently the most interesting subject — that of venereal diseases — was then approached. She said she had heard that the "sulfa" drugs were working miracles in curing gonorrhea.
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