And that wild sexual intercourse is here almost exclusively to blame is shown by the following statistics, given by Blaschko:
Of 67 syphilitic wives, almost all the wives of workmen, 64 were infected by their husbands; whereas, on the contrary, of 106 husbands, 7 only acquired the disease from their wives; the remaining 99 acquired it by extra-conjugal sexual intercourse, either before or after marriage.
Another very valuable set of statistics dealing with the sources of infection has been published by Heinrich Loeb.[364]
These relate to the conditions in Mannheim. It appears that the sources of infection were as follows:
| Waitresses and barmaids | 155 | instances. |
| Maidservants, cooks | 67 | „ |
| Shop-girls | 65 | „ |
| Middle-class girls | 29 | „ |
| Seamstresses and embroidery workers | 27 | „ |
| Chambermaids | 20 | „ |
| Factory workwomen | 17 | „ |
| Artistes, singers, and ballet-girls | 16 | „ |
| Wife or betrothed | 12 | „ |
| Tailoresses and modistes | 11 | „ |
| Ironers | 9 | „ |
| Book-keepers | 4 | „ |
| Widows | 4 | „ |
| Country girls | 3 | „ |
| Mistresses | 3 | „ |
| Total | 442 |
Here, as we see, the chief types of secret prostitution, the waitresses and barmaids, play the principal part; next, but a long way after, come maidservants and shop-girls. This, however, does not amount to saying that public prostitution is less dangerous. We know that a prostitute who has never been infected with venereal disease is something very rarely seen; that prostitutes under regulation are almost all, especially when still quite young, in an infective state, and that they serve just as much as secret prostitutes for the diffusion of venereal disease. It is a well-known fact that youthful prostitutes are more dangerous than women who have long practised prostitution, because the former are all suffering from more or less recent infection, and both gonorrhœa and syphilis are present in them in the stages in which they are still strongly infective. H. Berger bases upon statistical investigations[365] his belief that red-haired girls have the most delicate epithelium, fall sick most rapidly and in the greatest numbers; dark haired women at first suffer less. After they have been prostitutes for some time, there is no important difference between blonde, brown, and black-haired women; but black-haired prostitutes are, in fact, more inclined to infection later in their career, because they are more in request.
Now that we have learned that at the present day prostitution remains the principal source of venereal infection, the following question immediately demands an answer: What can the state do in order to remove these sources of infection? and have the measures which the state has hitherto put into operation been of any use in this direction? To put it shortly, what part has been played by the state regulation of prostitution, as hitherto practised, in the campaign against venereal diseases?
With Schmölder,[366] we understand by “regulation” the following practice, which is what obtains in the majority of civilized countries: The police keep a list in which the girls and women regarded by them as prostitutes have their names entered. The “inscribed” (inscrites) receive a “licentia stupri”—that is to say, the permission to practise professional fornication under continual observation on the part of the police (the renowned “moral control”[367]), which is associated with a number of commands, prohibitions, and regulations—above all, with the necessity of submitting to medical examination at definitely stated intervals, and, where necessary, to compulsory medical treatment. At the same time, public prostitution on the part of those who are not inscribed is suppressed as much as possible. Berger has admirably described (“Prostitution in Hanover,” pp. 1-19) the methods of regulation and their consequences. Above all, however, have Blaschko, Schmölder, and Neisser considered the modes of regulation customary at the present day from the moral, legal, and medical points of view, and have in part entirely condemned them (Blaschko and Schmölder), in part declared them to be gravely in need of reform (Neisser).[368]
Among those who have recently discussed the question of the regulation of prostitution, we may mention Anna Pappritz,[369] who condemns the practice; Clausmann, who is in favour of it;[370] Friedrich Hammer, also in favour of it;[371] and, finally, S. Bettmann, who leaves the question open.[372]
In our consideration of the coercive system of regulation, we take a single standpoint—namely, that of its possible value for the suppression of venereal diseases. Some demand the abolition of regulation on ethical and humanitarian grounds, and we do not wish in any way to make light of these grounds. But they could not be decisive, if, as an actual fact, regulation had an effect either in diminishing the prevalence of venereal diseases or in checking prostitution; but, in truth, the reverse is the case!