Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

And here we touch at once the grave difficulty of the position. These diseases are set apart from all other sicknesses of our bodies. Moral considerations become confused with practical values. I do not see that this in itself can be wrong. For there can be no greater ideal than that of removing the poisonous sting that with such abundant activity has worked evil in our midst.

There is, however, danger in too much and wrongly directed moral enthusiasm. It is of vital importance that a contagious disease should be isolated and cured, and if moral condemnation acts to defeat these objects, it cannot but be a danger. A contagious disease that must be kept secret cannot be properly dealt with and healed.

I hope I made my own position clear when I wrote on prostitution, where I tried to avoid a purely moral and idealistic treatment of the subject.[99] I shall follow the same plan here. I shall limit myself to the aspects of the question that to me seem to be of special importance, choosing by preference facts about which I have some little personal knowledge, or a fixed opinion of my own. In this way I may be able to contribute a word or two of worth to this difficult question.

The Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Disease brought the subject before a reluctant and apathetic public. It was time. According to the Commission one-tenth of the city population is infected by syphilis. The number of those affected by gonorrhœa is much larger. The latter disease is the more terribly injurious to women and children, because it is often considered a triviality by men. Syphilis serves as the origin of many functional and organic diseases, and its hereditary influence is truly disastrous. Blindness, deafness and insanity, as well as a weakened nervous resistance, are the inheritance handed to the children of the syphilitic. Gonorrhœa is the chief source of sterility in women, probably accounting for one-half of all cases.

At a time when infant life is of such supreme value to the nation as it is to-day, it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of these facts. We have to realise that could we act strongly and wisely so that in one generation we grappled with this great evil and cured it, we could make good the suffering and waste of life caused by the war.

Is it not worth while to do this? It can be done. There was a time when syphilis did not exist in our civilisation. It cannot be traced with any certainty in Europe before the fifteenth century, although its origin is involved in some controversy. The attempt to suppress venereal diseases by proper treatment is of less than twelve years’ duration. Three men—Wassermann, Ehrlich and Noguchi—have supplied the knowledge and given the means whereby the evil may be attacked. Up to the present little use has been made of the effective means of diagnosis and cure that we now possess. The cure has been left to private doctors. No general hospital would treat these diseases, and the special hospitals are few in number. Benefit societies and insurance commissioners have refused to grant the usual benefits to patients suffering from these diseases. The inoculations are very expensive, and many patients, even among the wealthy, have not used them, as they have feared to discover the truth. The desire for concealment has done everything to make cure difficult.

I must emphasise constantly the danger of secrecy. We have to face the facts as they are, not as we wish them to be. And for this reason, because the results are what we now know them to be, we must demand the clearing away of the moral stigma that has been placed as a ban upon the infected. It is so plain. Until every one attacked by these diseases seeks the best remedies, there can be no cure; and they will not seek the remedies while the presence of the diseases is considered as evidence of sin. In the past we have relied on fear as a deterrent and ignorance as a safeguard. They have failed. Let us now try practical cures. A pharisaic attitude is so highly mischievous that it becomes immoral.

The Government has taken prompt and fine action. It has removed one great difficulty, and effected all that can be done without fresh legislation. A comprehensive scheme of free diagnosis and treatment in general hospitals is to be organised by local authorities, who are to receive a grant from the Imperial Exchequer amounting to 75 per cent. of the cost. It is to be hoped that this admirable action will counteract the evils due to the increase of venereal disease certain to accompany the war.

The chief recommendations of the Commission other than those connected with direct immediate cure, which the Government has been able to carry out by an administrative Act, are as follows—

(1) The presence of infective venereal disease should be a cause for the prevention or annulment of marriage; further, the process of annulment should be made available for all persons, however poor.