The occurrence of the gonococcus in the circulating blood in certain forms of gonococcus infection has long been recognized. The demonstration of viable gonococci in the effusions of gonococcus arthritis led to the conclusion that at some time previous to the arthritis gonococci must have been present in the blood. Hewes in 1894 first isolated the gonococcus from the blood in a case of arthritis. The clinical observation that endocardial lesions not infrequently followed local infection by the gonococcus was supplemented by the finding of the organisms in the endocardial vegetations in fatal cases of ulcerative gonococcus endocarditis. Thayer and Blumer1 in 1896 isolated the gonococcus in pure culture from the blood during life in a case of ulcerative endocarditis, and post-mortem demonstrated the organism in the endocardial vegetations. Faure-Beaulieu2 in 1906 collected thirty-four cases from the literature in which the gonococcus was isolated