A common sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, characterized by discharge and painful urination.
From Greek 'gonos' (seed, semen) + 'rhoia' (flow). Named around 130 CE by the Greek physician Galen, who observed the symptom but misidentified its cause as an involuntary loss of semen.
For nearly 1,900 years, nobody knew gonorrhea was caused by bacteria—it wasn't until microscopes got good enough in the 1870s that doctors finally solved the mystery of Galen's 'seed flow.'
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