If the doctors come forward to tell us how the typhoid bacillus is disseminated, how dangerous it is, and how it is to be avoided, we are interested, grateful, and more or less willing to profit by the instruction. But when they try to tell us how the gonococcus attacks humanity, how dangerous it, and how it is to be avoided, we say, "Sh! That is something you mustn't talk about!"
To the credit of the profession they have kept on talking, many of them. To the credit of some of our bravest and wisest editors the talk has been widely published. And right here I wish to pay a well deserved tribute to the "Ladies' Home Journal," which ought to have a Nobel prize for great public service.
That paper—long scorned by me as the arch-type of all small ultra-feminine backwardness, did the bravest thing a paper can do, risked its whole position by flying in the face of the public and printing the clearest, fullest, most enlightening accounts of the present status of these "social diseases," their terrible effects, and our duty toward them. It lost subscribers by the thousand and hundred thousand, but it did the work; and did it better than any other publication could; not only on account of its enormous circulation, but because it went into the homes of pious and unenlightened persons who would never have seen the information in more progressive magazines.
The negative inertia and positive resistance of the popular mind cannot forever resist the constantly increasing pressure of knowledge now poured forth on this subject.
But there is that other obstacle—the tradition of secrecy in the medical profession.
Doctors take the Hipprocratic oath. They solemnly swear not to reveal the confidences of their patients; or, more properly their innocent confidences. They are not bound like priests in the confessional; if a patient tells the doctor he has poisoned his mother or is about to poison his father, the doctor is not bound to conceal the facts.
Nevertheless, if a patient afflicted with one of these highly contagious diseases tells his doctor that he has poisoned his wife, or is to poison his child—the doctor feels professionally bound to keep silence.
What puzzles an outsider is to see why the medical mind discriminates so sharply here between the conduct required in cases of small pox or scarlet fever, and in this case. If you tell the doctor you have leprosy—there's nothing sacred about that. Off with you to the pest house, at any cost of pain and shame to you or your family. Is the whole community to be exposed to infection just to save your feelings?
So even with measles, with diphtheria, with yellow fever. The privacy of the home is invaded, families are ruthlessly separated, the strong arm of the law is reached out to protect the public against this danger; and the doctor, so far from conniving with the patient, is legally required to record all cases of this sort.
Now where is the difference?