LOCAL CONTAGIOUS ULCERS Chancroid, Soft Chancre or Soft Sore is so named in con tradistinction to the Hunterian sore of syphilitic infection, the great characteristic of which is its hardness. The soft chancre is a contagious ulcer of the genitals, due to the inoculation of the bacillus of Ducrey; and, provided that the specific germ of syphilis is not inoculated at the same time, the chancre is not followed by constitutional affection. In other words, the disease is purely local, and if some of the discharge of one of these ulcers is inoculated on another part of the body of the individual a sore of an exactly similar nature appears. This reproduction of the sore can be done over and over again on the same individual, always with the same result. But in the case of the Hunterian sore, inoculation of the individual from the primary sore gives no result, because the constitutional disease has rendered the individ ual proof against further infection. The soft sore is often mul
tiple. It appears about three days after the exposure, and as it increases in size free suppuration takes place. Its base remains soft. In individuals broken down in health, the ulceration is apt to extend with great rapidity, and is then spoken of as phagedaenic.
Just as an individual may contract syphilis and gonorrhoea at the same connection, so also he may be inoculated simultaneously with the bacilli of the soft chancre and the spirochaete of syphilis. In this case the soft chancres appear, as usual, within the first three or four days, but though passing through the customary stages they may refuse quite to heal, or, having healed, they may become indurated in the second month, constitutional symptoms following in due course.