When the dispensary was established, its medical officers were directed to offer to prostitutes the choice of being treated at home or going to the hospital. Almost all chose the former. The physicians then undertook to decide themselves which should go to the hospital and which remain in their houses. The results of their experience, and the policy it compelled them to adopt, are shown in the following table, which was compiled by Parent-Duchatelet:
| Year. | Treated at home. | |
| 1812 | 276 | |
| 1813 | 300 | |
| 1814 | 296 | |
| 1815 | No report. | |
| 1816 | " | |
| 1817 | 123 | |
| 1818 | No report. | |
| 1819 | 25 | |
| 1820 | 19 | |
| 1821 | 27 | |
| 1824 | 27 | |
| 1825 | 7 | |
| 1826 | 4 |
The system of treating prostitutes at home was, in fact, given up. It was found they could not be compelled to take the medicines given them; and that, though laboring under the most severe disease, they would not abstain from the exercise of their calling.
The tables prepared by the sanitary office, or dispensary, at Paris, afford a clear view of the extent and progress of disease in that city. Of those which are furnished by M. Parent-Duchatelet, we shall take a few of the most striking. The following gives the aggregate disease for a period of twenty years:
| Years. | Average Patients. | Total Patients. | |||
| 1812 | 51 | 612 | |||
| 1813 | 79 | 948 | |||
| 1814 | 102 | 1224 | |||
| 1815 | Report missing. | ||||
| 1816 | 88 | 1056 | |||
| 1817 | 76 | 912 | |||
| 1818 | 68 | 816 | |||
| 1819 | 58 | 696 | |||
| 1820 | 62 | 744 | |||
| 1821 | 55 | 660 | |||
| 1822 | Report missing. | ||||
| 1823 | 69 | 828 | |||
| 1824 | 84 | 1008 | |||
| 1825 | 81 | 972 | |||
| 1826 | 93 | 1116 | |||
| 1827 | Report missing. | ||||
| 1828 | 104 | 1248 | |||
| 1829 | 99 | 1188 | |||
| 1830 | 91 | 1092 | |||
| 1831 | 110 | 1320 | |||
| 1832 | 78 | 936 | |||
| 17376 | |||||
| Add approximate estimate for three years wanting | 3250 | ||||
| Total diseased in twenty years | 20626 | [208] | |||
Other tables, apparently drawn with care, show that the proportion of disease to prostitutes varies widely in different years. In 1828 it was six per cent., that is to say, six out of every hundred prostitutes were diseased; but in 1832 it was barely three per cent. Four or five per cent. would seem a tolerably fair average.[209]
From another table compiled by the same author we gather that, during a period of eighteen years, January was found the most fatal month for prostitutes; next came August and September; while February, April, May, and July seemed seasons less favorable to disease. M. Duchatelet, however, candidly admits that he can trace the operation of no law here, and inclines to the belief that the variation is wholly due to chance.[210]
CHAPTER X.
FRANCE.—PRESENT REGULATIONS.