The prostitution in the largest town of the new world, in New York, also found an admirable description in the sixth decade of the nineteenth century in the great historical work of the New York physician, William M. Sanger.[269] Of the 685 large octavo pages which the book contains, pages 450 to 676 are devoted to the description of the conditions of prostitution in New York. The historical portion of the book is also extremely valuable, being based upon the best historical authorities.

With the year 1860, or thereabouts, this first period of the scientific literature of prostitution, characterized by monographs dealing with individual towns, in pursuance of the example of Parent-Duchatelet, came to a close. Just as Parent-Duchatelet had inaugurated this kind of description, so the French now undertook the introduction of the further researches into prostitution. First of all, Dr. J. Jeannel summarized the results of the books we have already mentioned in a general work on prostitution,[270] which contained a comparative view of the conditions in various countries and towns. An Englishman, W. Acton, also wrote a similar general work on prostitution;[271] whilst yet another general work on the subject was written by the German Hügel.[272]

The extremely important question of secret prostitution has been elucidated especially by the writings of Martineau[273] and Commenge;[274] the not less important question of prostitution practised by girls under full age is treated by Augagneur;[275] the problems of regulation and of brothels have been studied by Fiaux, whose work is comprehensive and based upon carefully compiled statistics, and the author attempts the solution of these problems;[276] the sometime French Minister Yves Guyot has discussed the problem of prostitution from the higher philosophical and social point of view;[277] in short, the French physicians illuminated this obscure province of thought from every side, and laid the foundations for the scientific and critical study of prostitution, which began with the last decade of the nineteenth century.

To Alfred Blaschko unquestionably belongs the credit of having broken entirely new ground in connexion with the problem of prostitution, by means of the debate instituted by him in the year 1892 in the Medical Society of Berlin, and by several works distinguished by a sharp-sighted, critical faculty.[278] Upon his exhaustive scientific studies, and upon the most careful practical considerations, Blaschko bases the demands:

“Abolish Regulation!
Away with Brothels!”

At the same time, Blaschko is a convinced advocate of the economic theory of prostitution.

Almost at the same time, Cesare Lombroso, the celebrated alienist and criminal anthropologist of Turin, propounded his anthropological theory of prostitution, and enunciated the doctrine, which attracted so much attention, of the “Donna delinquinte e prostituta,” of the “congenital prostitute.”[279] This doctrine found an unconditional supporter in the St. Petersburg syphilologist Tarnowsky; whilst the latter strongly opposed the efforts made by the International Federation, founded in 1875 by Mrs. Josephine Butler, for the abolition of the regulation of prostitution.[280] Ströhmberg, in an interesting work on prostitution,[281] takes the same standpoint as Lombroso and Tarnowsky.

It is, however, noteworthy that quite recently the French observers also, and, above all, the experienced Fiaux, are inclining to the views of Blaschko, of the accuracy of which I myself am now fully convinced, notwithstanding the fact that in my work on prostitution in England,[282] which appeared eight years ago (October, 1900), I still advocated regulation. E. von Düring also, who, as professor of medicine in Constantinople for many years, has made elaborate study of the conditions of prostitution in that town, adheres, in an essay well worth reading, without qualification to the opinion of Blaschko regarding the uselessness of regulation and of brothels.[283]

After this brief enumeration of the most important descriptive and scientific studies of prostitution, we shall now proceed to a short account of the conditions that obtain at the present day.

The idea of “prostitution” is in no respect clearly and sharply limited. Parent-Duchatelet considered that prostitution only occurred