What Is VD? Venereal Disease Meaning Today

What VD means

If your grandfather mentioned "catching VD," he was talking about sexually transmitted diseases — full stop. The phrase ruled medical language from the 1600s through the Vietnam era; army induction posters, public-health films and 1940s penicillin campaigns all said venereal disease. Only in the late 1970s–80s did "sexually transmitted disease" displace it, followed by today's preference for STI.

The Venus connection

English borrowed venereal from Latin venereus — pertaining to Venus, goddess of love and desire. The term entered medicine in the 17th century when physicians grouped the two known sexual plagues, syphilis (the pox) and gonorrhea (the clap), under one label. For nearly three centuries those two diseases were venereal disease, until germ theory revealed dozens more pathogens using the same transmission route.

Is VD still used? And can you get rid of VD?

You'll meet VD in historical texts, veterans' stories, older relatives' vocabulary and crossword puzzles — rarely on clinic signage. The conditions themselves remain very current:

• Bacterial VD (syphilis, gonorrhea) cures completely with antibiotics — see which STDs are curable.
• Viral VD (herpes, HPV, hepatitis B) persists but is manageable, vaccine-preventable or self-clearing.
• Parasitic VD (trichomoniasis, crabs) clears with short treatments.

A "VD test" ordered today typically means syphilis serology specifically — the old Wassermann test's descendants (RPR, VDRL) still carry VD-lineage names like "VDRL": Venereal Disease Research Laboratory.

The classic venereal diseases

In the VD era, clinicians used “venereal disease” mainly for infections transmitted by sexual contact — most often syphilis and gonorrhea, but also chancroid, lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV), and granuloma inguinale (donovanosis). These older names still appear in medical histories.

Today, the STI/STD umbrella also includes viral infections such as herpes, HIV, and HPV. These are not curable in the same sense; they can be suppressed or managed, but not eliminated from the body.

Finding “VD” in an older medical record

If a record from decades ago says only “VD,” it usually means syphilis or gonorrhea was diagnosed or suspected, but it may not specify which. Do not assume a past treatment was completed or effective. Syphilis can remain latent for years with no symptoms; untreated or inadequately treated syphilis can progress to neurosyphilis or cardiovascular syphilis later.

A conservative clinical reading is to treat an unclear VD notation as a red flag, not a specific diagnosis. A syphilis serology panel — typically a treponemal test with nontreponemal titer — can clarify whether there is untreated or previously treated syphilis. In pregnancy, an old VD note matters because congenital syphilis remains preventable only if maternal syphilis is detected and treated.

What “VD” does not tell you

A single word “VD” does not tell you the causative organism, the anatomical site, the date of infection, or whether treatment succeeded. The same term was used for urethral discharge, genital ulcers, pelvic infection, and neurological syphilis. That is one reason modern records use specific diagnoses — such as “gonococcal urethritis” or “latent syphilis” — instead of a broad umbrella term.

It also does not indicate immunity. A person can acquire syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, or herpes more than once. A past VD diagnosis does not protect against future infections, and each new exposure requires its own evaluation.