From the prostitutes within our borders emanates the plague of syphilis, and when the number of abandoned women is considered in conjunction with the certainty that each of them is liable at any moment to contract and extend the malady; when the probabilities of such extension are viewed in connection with the acknowledged fact that each prostitute in New York receives from one to ten visitors every day (instances are known where the maximum exceeds and sometimes doubles the highest number here given), there can be no reasonable doubt of the danger of infection, nor any surprise that the average life of prostitutes is only four years.
The actual extent of venereal disease must be the first point of inquiry, and here the records of public institutions are of great service. The hospitals on Blackwell’s Island, under the charge of the Governors of the Alms-house, present the largest array of cases, the principal part of which were treated in the Penitentiary (now Island) Hospital. The number of these cases was in
| 1854 | 1541 | |
| 1855 | 1579 | |
| 1856 | 1639 | |
| 1857 | 2090 |
Upon these facts the writer of these pages remarked in his annual report to the Board of Governors for 1856:
| “The ratio of venereal disease on the gross number of patients treated in 1854 was | 374⁄10 | per cent. | |
| The ratio of the same disease in 1855 was | 587⁄10 | " | |
| Showing an increase in the year 1855 of | 213⁄10 | " | |
| The ratio of venereal disease on the gross number of patients treated during 1856 was | 731⁄10 | " | |
| Showing an increase in 1856, as compared with 1855, of | 144⁄10 | " | |
| Or an increase, as compared with 1854, of | 357⁄10 | " |
This steady increase, 213⁄10 per cent. in one year, and 144⁄10 per cent. in the next, or 357⁄10 per cent. within two years, may be considered an incontrovertible proof of the progress of this malady in the city of New York. The fact that the people regard the Penitentiary Hospital as a dernier resort, an institution to which nothing but the direst necessity will compel them to apply, justifies the conclusion that the cases treated are but a fraction of the disease existing, and its increase here may be taken as a sure indication of a corresponding or larger increase among the general population.”[399]
Again, on the same subject in 1857:
“In my last report I took the opportunity to submit to your Honorable Board facts proving the increase of venereal disease, and I then gave the ratio of that malady on the gross number of patients treated as 731⁄10 per cent. In the year 1857 the ratio was 652⁄10 per cent.; but this reduction of 79⁄10 per cent, must be considered in connection with the fact that other diseases, much beyond the general average, have been treated in the last year, so that a larger number of venereal cases will yet show a smaller percentage. The cases of phthisis pulmonalis (consumption), which have advanced from 58 in 1856 to 159 in 1857, sufficiently explain that the decrease of venereal affections is apparent and not real.”[400]
An investigation beyond the statistics upon which these remarks were based, and including the Penitentiary Hospital, Alms-house, Work-house and Penitentiary, had shown that of the total number admitted to these several institutions 59½ per cent. had suffered or were suffering from venereal disease at the time the inquiry was made. Of this proportion 45 per cent. of the total were suffering directly at the time of investigation, and 19 per cent. were suffering indirectly, or, in non-professional language, were laboring under diseases more or less consequent on the syphilitic taint.
The following detailed statistics of venereal disease treated in the Penitentiary Hospital for four years ending December 31, 1857, will be found to embrace many subjects which have been alluded to in these pages.