‘I mentioned, in speaking of the grave duties demanded by puberty, that one of the important functions of the physician in regard to the development of the girl during the thirteen years which precede it, is to instruct her and her guardians how to prepare her for the approaching issue. In language no less strong I would here insist upon the physician’s duty to instruct men in all stations of life as to the importance of a “clean bill of health” in reference to gonorrhœa, both acute and chronic, before the marriage contract be entered upon.
‘Until a very late period the plan universally followed has been this: The man about to be married went to his physician, told him the history of a gonorrhœa, and asked if, now that all discharge appeared to have ceased, any danger would attend his consummating the tie. The physician would ask a few questions, examine the virile organ carefully as to discharge, and, if the “outside of the platter” appeared clean, give his consent to the union. The evil which has resulted from this superficial and perfunctory course has been as great as it has been widespread. To-day the question of stricture, a slight, scarcely perceptible “latent gonorrhœa,” with its characteristic “gonococcus,” is looked into, and not until all trace of disease is eradicated is permission given for the union. A marital quarantine is as necessary to-day in social life as a national quarantine is for contagious diseases in general.
‘Few men, however eager for matrimony they may be, would run the great risks attendant upon precipitancy if they only knew of them clearly and positively. In no field of medicine is the old adage, “Prevention is better than cure,” more important than in this one. If physicians would do their duty fully in the matter, how many unfortunate women now languishing from “pyosalpinx” would in the next generation be saved!’
APPENDIX II. (Page 101)
The following important Memorandum lately issued is full of promise of a noble future in the British army.
Memorandum by the Commander-in-Chief.
‘It will be the duty of company officers to point out to the men under their control, and particularly to young soldiers, the disastrous effects of giving way to habits of intemperance and immorality; the excessive use of intoxicating liquors unfits the soldier for active work, blunts his intelligence, and is a fruitful source of military crime.
‘The man who leads a vicious life enfeebles his constitution, and exposes himself to the risk of contracting disease of a kind which has of late made terrible ravages in the British army.
‘Many men spend a great deal of their short term of service in the military hospitals, the wards of which are crowded with patients, a large number of whom are permanently disfigured and incapacitated from earning a livelihood in or out of the army.
‘Men tainted with this disease are useless to the State while in the army, and a burden to their friends after they have left it.
‘Even those who do not altogether break down are unfit for service in the field, and would certainly be a source of weakness to their regiments and discredit to their comrades if employed in war.