This was in 1954 and was especially intended for gonorrhea, in which the incubation period is usually less than six days. Dr. Shafer says,

“Consequently, the speed zone program concentrates upon female contacts of the male gonorrhea patient within a period beginning six days before the onset of his clinical symptoms and ending at the time of his appearance in the clinic.”

At that time the search was made principally by telegraph, but by 1965 the telephone was being used, all confidential information being sent, however, in code. But it is unavoidable that identification of cases cannot preserve the strict anonymity intended; it may be only in the final record that names are omitted.

Even so gonorrhea, with its short incubation period, tends to move too fast, although its rising incidence is forcing new efforts at this "cluster testing." But for a ti1lle the practice was limited to the more leisurely syphilis. And we have a new nick name, maybe with military activities again in fashion, namely "blitz." The RPR card test helps.

Sometimes the results have been spectacular. A report by R. W. Ball of South Carolina covered a five month period beginning in January, 1964. It began with a case of primary syphilis in a man thirty seven years old, reported by a private physician with a request for the contact investigation, for which the doctor had evidently cleared the way. This particular blitz involved 263 persons, 225 of whom were contacts. Of these contacts 207, or 92 per cent, were examined, and an additional 44 infectious cases of syphilis primary, secondary, and early latent were found and brought to treatment. Most of these patients lived in a single manufacturing town of 10,000 odd population, but there were named contacts in eight other states as far away as Washington. The patients ranged from an unemployed high school dropout to prominent citizens of the community. All were white, most of them middle class. Four were under twenty, the youngest a fifteen year old girl.

“The average number of sex contacts per patient interviewed was five. Every patient named more than one different sexual contact. In one instance a 16 year old girl admitted to having sex relations with 13 different men during a six month period, six of whom were found to be infected with primary or secondary syphilis.” (see AFTER PENICILLIN: FAILURE PART III)