[310] Victor Joze, “Paris-Gomorrhe. Mœurs du Jour,” p. 173 (Paris, 1898).
[311] Georg Dahlen, “Sketches of European Society,” p. 126 (Berlin, 1885).
CHAPTER XIV
VENEREAL DISEASES
“In co-operation with alcoholic intoxication and with tuberculosis, syphilis plays in our day the part which in the middle ages was played by bubonic plague.”—Alfred Fournier.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XIV
Prostitution the focus, not the cause, of venereal diseases — Philosophy of venereal diseases — Their age — Time and place of their first appearance — The origin of syphilis — Practical importance of the proof of the recent character of syphilis — The theologico-animistic theory of venereal diseases — Refutation of this theory — Blameless infection (syphilis innocentium) — The notion of specific infective disease — Scientific campaign against venereal diseases — Syphilis as a specific disease of modern times — Description of its symptoms, its course, and its termination — Consequences of syphilis to the family, to the offspring, and to the race — Congenital syphilis of the first and second generations — Racial degeneration in consequence of syphilis — The age at which infection with syphilis occurs in man and in woman — The soft chancre (chancroid) — Gonorrhœa — Change in our views regarding the dangers of gonorrhœa — Urethral gonorrhœa in the male — Acute and chronic stages — Complications — Gonorrhœa in women — The “diseases of women” — Blindness due to gonorrhœa.
Appendix: Venereal Diseases in the Homosexual.