“2. Are, or are not, the number of such inmates steadily on the increase?
“3. Do not patients in the different institutions, particularly in the Penitentiary Hospital, often leave before the disease is cured, so that they are liable to infect other persons after their departure?
“4. Are not the offspring of parents affected with constitutional syphilis subject to many diseases of like character, which cause them to become a charge upon the city for long periods of time, and often for life?
“5. What are your views in reference to the best means of checking and decreasing this disease, and what plan, in your opinion, could be adopted to relieve New York City of the enormous amount of misery and expense caused by syphilis?
“6. You will reply in full to the above queries at the earliest possible date.
“Resolved, That a copy of the above be sent to the Resident Physician, Blackwell’s Island.”
To reply to these questions, especially to the fifth, I discovered that it would be requisite to extend my investigations beyond the limits of the institutions on Blackwell’s Island. This idea was communicated to President Townsend, who joined me in appreciating the necessity of such a movement. He also was the means of interesting Mayor Wood and other officers of the city in the investigation as subsequently carried on, while his continued exertions and earnest support aided me generally in the prosecution of the labor, and merit my most sincere and grateful acknowledgments.
The steps thus taken are fully detailed in the following letter to the Board of Governors, that letter, or preliminary report, having been called for in connection with the reports from the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, and from the Resident Physician of Randall’s Island, which will be found, in extenso, in [Chapter XXXVII.] of this work:[4]
“Isaac Townsend, Esq., President of the Board of Governors.
“Dear Sir,—In reply to your letter asking for answers to certain interrogatories on the subject of prostitution and its diseases, I have to state that I am not prepared to report, nor can I do so for some considerable length of time to come.