The Essential Features of a Modern Campaign.—The repeated sifting of the facts which has been done in recent years by important investigations, such as that of the Sydenham Commission in Great Britain and the Society for Combatting Sexual Disease in Germany, and the legislative programs already mentioned, have gradually crystallized into fairly definite form, the undoubted essentials of a program for controlling venereal diseases, syphilis among them. These may be summarized as follows:

  1. The provision of universally available good treatment, at the expense of the state, if necessary, for the diseases in question.
  2. The provision by the state of efficient means of recognizing the diseases at the earliest possible time and with the greatest possible certainty in any given case.
  3. The suppression of quack practice, drug-store prescribing, and advertising of cures for these diseases.
  4. Moral and educational prophylaxis and the vigorous suppression of prostitution.

In addition to these measures, which are common to all proposals and working systems for the control of sexual disease, certain other recommendations may be classed as debatable, inasmuch as they are still under discussion and have been incorporated into some and omitted from others. These are as follows:

  1. General instruction in personal prophylaxis for the population at large.
  2. Compulsory measures and penalties obliging patients to receive treatment and continue it until cured, regardless of their own desires in the matter.
  3. Notification or reporting of cases of sexual disease to the health authorities.
  4. Indirect legislation, as it might be called, which aims to detect infected persons before they enter on marriage rather than at the outset of the disease, either by releasing the physician in charge of the case from the bond of professional confidence, or by requiring health certificates before marriage, and which annuls marriages after infection is discovered.

Easily Available Treatment.—It will be noticed that toleration of prostitution with supervision has finally disappeared from the modern program for the control of sexual diseases. The provision for universally available treatment, regardless of the patient's means or circumstances, should be thought of as the one fundamental requirement without which no program has made even a beginning. For over a century Denmark has provided for the free treatment of all patients with venereal disease. The Norwegian law, essentially similar, dates from 1860. Italy a few years ago adopted a similar program, placing squarely upon the state the responsibility of providing for the care of all patients with venereal diseases. England has just adopted a mixed provision which will in practice place most of the responsibility upon the state and very little on the individual, as far as the expense of treatment is concerned. Germany has compelled her insurance companies to shoulder the burden, and under pressure of war is hastening matters by invoking more and more governmental aid. The recent West Australian Act provides that every medical officer in the pay of the state shall treat venereal disease free of charge. In comparison with the tremendous advances over previous indifference which such programs represent, this country makes a poor showing. Among us, no public agency is formally charged with any duty in the matter of preventing, recognizing, or treating the vast amount of venereal infection that mars our national health. Certain state boards of health are attempting to perform Wassermann tests, and certain municipalities have well-organized laboratories for the detection of syphilis and gonorrhea, but there are few purely public agencies that even pretend to have a specialist in their employ to assist in the recognition of cases and conduct the treatment of patients who cannot afford private care. Hospital and dispensary treatment of venereal diseases is almost entirely in semi-private hands, and a recent investigation of clinics and dispensaries for the treatment of syphilis and gonorrhea in New York city, for example, showed that many of them were so poorly equipped and run at such unreasonable hours that they were frequented only by vagabonds, were of no value in the early recognition of syphilis, could not administer salvarsan under conditions to which a discriminating patient would dare to trust himself, and made no pretense at following their cases beyond the door or discharging them from medical care as cured. One of the largest cities in this country until a year ago had not even a night clinic to which day workers could come, and is scarcely awake now to the necessity for such a thing.

Dispensary Service.—The provision of adequate treatment and diagnostic facilities, on a par with those which will presently cover Europe, will mean the following things: First of all, dispensaries, and many of them, for the identification of early cases, fully equipped with dark-field microscopes, with record systems, and with the means for following patients from the time they enter until they are cured. This means nurses, it means social service workers, it means doctors with special and not general knowledge of syphilis and gonorrhea. The Brooklyn Hospital Dispensary is an admirable example of what such an institution should be, but it is one where such institutions should be numbered by dozens and by hundreds. Copenhagen, with a population less than that of several cities in this country which have none, has seven municipal clinics whose hours and names are prominently advertised.

Hospitals.—In the second place there must be hospital facilities. They must not be venereal hospitals, but services or parts of general hospitals, so that patients who are received into them will be protected from stigma and comment. Pontopidan, a Danish expert, estimated that for the care of venereal disease one hospital bed to every 2000 of population was insufficient, and yet there are cities in this country which do not have one bed available for the purpose to 100,000 people. The hospital performs a peculiarly valuable function in the care of syphilis in particular. It provides for temporary quarantine, and for the education of the patient in his responsibility to the community when he is discharged. Three weeks or more under hospital direction is the best possible start for an active syphilis that is to be cured. The privacy of a syphilitic can be protected in a hospital as successfully as in a specialist's office, and the quality of treatment which can be given him is distinctly better than he can obtain while out and around. Hospitals in general have kept their doors closed to syphilis until recently, and it is only under the pressure of a growing understanding of what this means to the public health that they are awakening to their duty.

Cheap Salvarsan.—Before a general campaign for the successful treatment of syphilis can be made a fact, salvarsan must become, as has already been pointed out, a public and not a private asset. It must be available to all who need it at the lowest possible cost[17]—practically that of manufacture—and must be supplied by the state when necessary. The granting of patent rights which make possible the present exploitation for gain of such vital agents in the protection of the public health is a mistake which we should lose no time in remedying. While salvarsan does not mean the cure of syphilis, it does mean a large part of its control as an infectious disease. When it can be given only to the person who can muster from five to twenty-five dollars for each dose which he receives, it is evident that its usefulness is likely to be seriously restricted.

[17] The price of salvarsan before the war was $3.50 per full dose for the drug alone. It can be profitably marketed at less than $1.00 per dose. The patent rights have been temporarily suspended during the war, and their renewal by Congress should not be permitted.

Reduction of the Expense of Efficient Treatment.—Free treatment for those who cannot afford to pay is a necessary part of the successful operation of any scheme for the control of sexual disease. But for those who can and are willing to pay a moderate amount for what they receive, there should be pay clinics which will bridge the gap between the rough and ready quality and the unpleasant associations of a free dispensary, and the expensive luxuries of a specialist's office. This is a field which is almost virgin in this country, and which deserves public support. There is no reason why, for a reasonable fee, the patient with syphilis should not secure all the benefits of hospital care, the personal attention of specially trained men, an intelligent supervision of his case, and the benefit of coöperation between a hospital service in charge of experts and the home doctor who must care for him during a considerable part of the course of his disease. Provision of this sort makes treatment both more attractive and more available to large numbers of people whose pride keeps them away from the public provision for charity cases, and whose limited means leave them at the mercy either of quackery or of well-meaning but entirely inexperienced physicians.