Ignorance and a Wrecked Home
May I give you a single illustration of the wrecking of two lives, through the ignorance of a boy touching these grave questions? This sad story was told me by a medical friend, who was personally acquainted with these young people, and while an interne in a hospital, in one of our eastern cities, assisted in the operation referred to.
A young boy of sixteen, of one of the refined and cultured families of the city, had grown up in ignorance as to sex relations and instincts. He was invited to a week-end party, at the home of friends, and while there, with a houseful of guests, fell in with a woman older than himself, who enticed him into improper relations with her. Whether she knew it or not, she was afflicted with the leprosy of lewdness and she passed it on to this boy. As soon as he discovered his condition he went to his father and told him about this incident and was taken to one of the best physicians in this country, who lived in the city. This physician treated the young man till he was twenty-four years old and assured him, so far as medical science could determine, he seemed to be entirely cured. The young man had become awakened by this sad experience and through this awakening learned of the awful fatality which attaches itself to this leprosy, so to be sure he went to another specialist and was examined and treated by him for a year. During these years, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, he had fallen in love with a beautiful young woman of one of the refined homes of the city; but so much of dread had he that he deferred his marriage for a year to make sure that the last vestige of the plague was gone. At last they were married with all the joys and delights of that hour.
Vain hope was his, for in less than a year after their marriage the physicians were compelled to perform an operation to save the young woman’s life, which forever left that home childless and the young husband carrying in his heart an awful shadow which would never lift till the grave received him.
This is not an isolated case, for such tragedies are multiplied by thousands all over this fair land of ours. And the appalling facts are that a large majority of them can be charged to a lack of education by the parents. Thousands of dollars are spent to educate the children in books and music, but not a moment of time given to teach them the truth about this one most important subject.