—E. A. B.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE VENEREAL DISEASES.
Note:—We are permitted to quote this chapter from the book "Man and Woman," by Dr. Wm. T. Belfield, Professor in Rush Medical College, and Secretary of the Chicago Society of Social Hygiene organized by the Chicago Medical Society.
Promiscuous and clandestine indulgence of the reproductive instinct, everywhere prevalent, is for obvious reasons especially common in our large cities, where even children of both sexes are frequently initiated into sexual practices before puberty—a fact familiar to physicians and often revealed in our Juvenile Courts, though apparently unsuspected by parents in general. Chicago papers recently recorded the discovery of such practices among pupils of a public school.
The illicit sexual relation is the chief though not the only factor in the dissemination of the two serious venereal diseases; so prevalent are these in our large cities that at least half the adult male population of all social grades, according to conservative estimates, contract one or both of them. (In Germany gonorrhoea is the most frequent of all diseases, with the single exception of measles; in America it is about as frequent.) Were the evil effects of these diseases limited to those who seek clandestine indulgence, discussion of this distasteful topic might be reserved for them only; but since he who has acquired either of these diseases is, for an indefinite period, a possible source of contagion to his associates—especially to his bride and her children—the essential facts should be understood by every adult. These facts, so far as they concern the public welfare, are here briefly summarized:
1. Every prostitute, public or private, acquires venereal disease sooner or later; hence all of them are diseased some of the time, and some of them practically all of the time. The man who patronizes them risks his health at every exposure.
2. Medical inspection is an advantage to the prostitute chiefly because it gives her patron a false sense of security. Even the most elaborate and painstaking examination—and such is not bestowed upon the prostitute—may fail to detect a woman's lurking infectiousness; the perfunctory, routine examination actually made affords but a feeble protection to the patron. Moreover, at the first cohabitation after such examination she may acquire disease which she may transmit to every subsequent patron, until it is perhaps discovered at the next examination.
3. The many antiseptic washes, lotions and injections upon which the ignorant rely for protection from disease, are inefficient; not because they cannot destroy the germs of disease, but because they do not penetrate the skin and mucous membranes in which these germs have been sheltered.