These statements are supported both by historical experience and sound medical knowledge.
The human race, in advancing through lower stages of development, passes from polygamy and concubinage to the higher state of Christian marriage. The scientific basis which underlies this advance has not yet been realized.
Polygamy, although morally degrading to both parties from its injustice, tyranny, and impairment of vigour, does not produce the special physical curse of syphilitic disease.
But promiscuous intercourse inevitably tends to give rise to varying forms of venereal disease, no matter what precautions may be taken.
In the female subject, irritation, congestion, or inflammation of the parts are the result of unnatural repetition of the sexual act. By such irritation the natural and healthy secretions of those organs are rendered morbid.
The natural secretions of the male organs also become morbid in licentious men, developing into blennorrhagia, or purulent gonorrhœa, and thus the danger of promiscuity is intensified.
Neither is it possible, when such injurious practices are allowed, to cleanse or disinfect the female parts as if they were a plane surface. The woman’s structure is designed for the passage of a child’s head. It is consequently composed of immensely distensible or elastic tissue, forming folds or rugæ, which may retain diseased products. It is also abundantly supplied with active secretory and absorbent glands, whose action may become unhealthy.
The special danger of specific disease also arising from the congress of different races is a well-known fact. The alarming epidemic of venereal disease, which spread like the plague through Europe in the fifteenth century, was brought from America by the licentious conquerors of Peru. This gravest form of racial injury is now being emphasized by the contrast between the condition of our white and coloured troops in India.
Although medical investigation has failed to determine precisely the originating cause of the specific virus which produces the form of venereal disease named syphilis, yet it is always connected more or less directly with promiscuous intercourse, especially with the advance of armies.[10]
We know, however, that morbid changes may take place in the natural secretions of the male and female organs under impure sexual intercourse, leading to advanced forms of degeneration in the various results of gonorrhœa, producing, particularly when the epidermis is abraded, sores, ulcers, etc. And the poison of diseased secretion is thus conveyed from one to the other partner in vice.