Nor can the presence of infectivity, once acquired, be detected by inspection; and no infected immoral person, still carrying on impure sexual relations, can ever be pronounced healthy or ‘sound’ by means of examination or ocular investigation. Neither can the absence of the so-called venereal germ gonococcus be relied on as proving health. Its specific significance is denied by many competent investigators, and it is absent in some of the worst forms of disease.
‘Mediate contagion’ is also an important and well-established medical fact. Thus a famous French harlot, called ‘Casse-noix,’ presented none of the grosser signs of venereal disease, yet continued to infect the men who resorted to her.
When to the difficulty of pronouncing the parts with their secretions healthy, is added the existence of uncleanliness, of drunkenness, etc., in either party, the danger of these promiscuous relations is evident.
Now, these positive medical facts appear to be unknown in their full significance to our Government advisers, judging from the latest reports and proposals with regard to disease in the Indian army, which seemed designed to allay national panic rather than to reach the source of the evil. A mistake was certainly made by Government in withdrawing a subject of such vital importance to the nation, from full consideration by our Parliamentary representatives, on account of its painful character. The consequence is that an active but irresponsible Press has thrown a mass of unsifted and shocking statistics broadcast amongst the people, creating widespread alarm.
The army statistics imperatively demand a far more searching examination, both into facts and their causes, than has yet been given, before rational or permanent legislation can be adopted. Any thoughtful person examining the reports referred to, will see that such facts as the following require elucidation: the actual number of individuals affected (not the repeated return of the same soldier) and the varying category of their complaints; the variations in different cantonments, with the causes of such difference; the effect produced by the introduction of the short-service system and by increased restrictions on marriage; the closure of voluntary hospitals and dispensaries; the influence of malaria and tropical climate on the constitution; the mixture of different races; and the causes which have produced the improved health results which are obtained in the army in England.
These points have not been sufficiently investigated by unprejudiced inquiry. The well-meaning effort of Government to meet a very serious state of things must inevitably fail, because the necessary bases for legislation are not yet established.
It is clear that, until all these essential facts have been carefully looked into by a competent Commission and the results presented to Parliament, no legislation—which apparently destroys the foundations of morality, which perverts and weakens our youth, and which, under the misleading phrase ‘voluntary submission,’ reduces our helpless Indian sisters to virtual slavery of the most destructive character—can be permanently accepted by the British nation. We must look forward, therefore, to a longer and more arduous struggle than the one that was prematurely quieted in 1888. Neither can the struggle between right and wrong methods of practical action be confined to our Indian army. It concerns our work in Great Britain as well as in India and in Africa. The dire diseases in question are connected with all large towns as well as with every military station, and as physicians we must study them in these two relations.
III.
On the Principle which must guide all Practical Methods of dealing with Venereal Diseases in the Army.
On this vast subject I can only refer to-day to two practical methods of gradually extirpating venereal disease from our army in India.
The first is the steady discouragement by Government of promiscuous intercourse.