[Sexually transmitted diseases in the History of Medicine]

Classic sexually transmitted diseases (syphilis, gonorrhea, condyloma acuminatum, venereal ulcera) were known since ancient times. Being considered as a "divine punishment" for impure intercourses, they were generally mistaken one for another (except for condylomatosis) until the different pathogenic agents were identified in the course of 19th Century. It was only with the introduction of antibiotics that their incidence drastically fell, at least up to this last decade, as a number of factors determined their fresh outbreak.