Venereal disease

“ But I do not advocate letting disease and vice alone. There is a right way as well as a wrong way of dealing with venereal disease. I consider that legislation is needed on this subject. It is unwise to propose to do nothing because legislation has unhappily done wrong. It is out of the question to suppose that in this age, when we justly boast of the progress of hygiene or preventive medicine, so great an evil as the unchecked spread of venereal disease should be allowed to continue. ”

“ Were it no more disgraceful to contract syphilis than it is to have fever and ague, the diseased would seek early relief, which is nearly equivalent to certain relief, and the disorder would soon be confined to the pitiable few who have lost in drunkenness and misery the instinctive dread of all that is foul and disgusting in personal disease. Prostitution, it is true, would then be restored to its old Roman dignity, yet venereal disease could then be reached, and all but eradicated. But a respectable syphilis does not belong to our age and nation. ”

“ I always recall with a shock the utterance of a university professor in the days when salvarsan was expected to cure syphilis at a single dose. He rated it as a catastrophe that any such drug should have been discovered, because he felt that it would remove a great barrier to promiscuous relations between men and women—the fear of venereal disease. This is the point of view that perpetuates the disease among us. It is this attitude of mind that maintains an atmosphere of disgrace and secrecy and shame about a great problem in public health and muddles our every attempt to solve it. ”

“ It follows that at least every other person in the Kingdom has suffered from venereal disease. Probably not a family has escaped infection. In proportion to its prevalence syphilis is not very deadly, yet it has been reckoned as the fourth killing disease. The victims of gonorrhœa are incalculable. Venereal diseases fill our hospitals, asylums, and workhouses. They are the principal causes of heart disease, apoplexy, paralysis, insanity, blindness in children, and of that life of sterility and pain to which so many women are condemned. ”

“ Nature has devised a retribution for illicit intercourse in the form of venereal disease. If the parties observe fidelity to the marriage vows venereal disease is experienced in wedlock only on very rare occasions, and then through some accidental infection, as from contact with some public utensils, as a public water closet, a public towel or drinking cup. ”

“ Venereal disease, I have to repeat, is terrible enough in itself, without any exaggeration, without picturing it in too black colors. And it is necessary that people should not have too black an idea of it. It is necessary that they know that there are thousands and tens of thousands of patients who suffered with gonorrhea or syphilis and who were perfectly cured, who married, and whose wives remained perfectly well, and who gave birth to perfectly healthy untainted children. ”

“ After all, the microbes of venereal disease grow almost exclusively in the genital passages, and if these were kept sweet and clean there would soon be an end to venereal disease. It is not a matter of making vice safe: it is a matter of making marriage safe: a matter of restoring and maintaining physical health, family and national, and above all, of protecting innocent women and children, for if vice has its dangers so also in these days has innocence its own peculiar perils, and it is the cry of these victims—often so young and so fair—that must affect us most deeply. ”

“ The truth of the matter is that while a man can always tell when something is the matter with him, and can always notice or perceive some evidence of the venereal disease, such as a discharge, pains, sores, etc., a woman hardly ever is aware of her disease. In fact, women feel pains, discomfort, and suffer acute distress only in the acute stage of venereal diseases, at the very beginning of the infection. ”

“ The dangerous roller towel and the no less dangerous common drinking cup are being gradually eliminated as factors of non-venereal infection; and we may confidently expect that in a decade or two the amount of venereal disease from venereal infection will be greatly lessened in all civilized countries. The general increase in cleanliness in all strata of society and the universal use of antiseptics after suspicious sexual relations will constitute the chief factors in this diminution of venereal disease. ”

“ All it can establish and claim is that no acute or active symptoms or lesions have been found on examination, and that there is no urgent necessity to move this woman to the hospital as an evident and prolific source of venereal infection. In other words, medical inspection can single out and isolate a few of the most flagrant and most evident cases of venereal diseases, but the women 74not excluded by medical examination from plying their trade are just as able to carry over venereal infection to a man as their sisters removed to the hospital. ”

“ Children suffer innocently from venereal disease, not only by inheritance from infected parents, but by accidently coming in contact with the germs on towels, &c., which have been used by a patient. There are also cases which come before the Courts where disease has been conveyed directly in crimes of violence by sexual perverts. ”

“ To be sure, there is a small contingent of men and women who realize the necessity of a frank discussion of the very important matter of venereal disease. But unfortunately they are attempting to drive out the devil with fire. They are enlightening the public as to the gravity of gonorrhea and syphilis, but are implanting an evil by no means less harmful, namely, the element of fear. The result often is that the victims who contract an infection are as little capable of taking care of themselves now as in the past when they knew little about the subject. ”

“ By treating venereal disease in hospital with more regard for decency and modesty, by abolishing the brand of shame, and by separating patients according to their behavior, we might succeed in improving a state of things which is often unbearable. Patients with venereal diseases would then more willingly submit to hospital treatment and would be more easily cured. ”

“ A large proportion of those who are most severely struck by venereal disease are new-born children and trustful wives, while a simple kiss or the use of towels and cups in common has constantly served to spread venereal disease in a family. ”

“ Unwelcome as the fact is there is an abundance of evidence to show that a large percentage [Pg 183] of men in particular have at some period of their life been infected with venereal disease. Of our fourteen million males in the United States under the age of thirty we find estimates by some specialists in venereal diseases to the effect that five million of them, that is, one out of three, suffer from some one of the social diseases or their consequences. ”

“ By proclaiming openly that the venereal diseases are diseases like any other disease, although more subtle and terrible than most, which may attack anyone from the unborn baby to its grandmother, and that they are not, more than other diseases, the shameful penalties of sin, from which relief is only to be sought, if at all, by stealth, but human calamities ”

“ The very fact that they present themselves so coolly at the places for the special treatment of venereal diseases, suffices to show that they fully understand the cause of their illness." In Jullien's opinion, venereal disease is especially serious in children, because many of them conceal their condition as long as possible in the hope of avoiding punishment. ”

“ The moral stigma at present attached to sufferers from venereal disease should rest upon all who sacrifice to their own selfish passions the chivalrous relations which should subsist between the sexes. Those who are unfortunate enough to contract disease incur a punishment so terrible that they deserve our pity and our succour, always provided that they seek skilled treatment and refrain from any conduct likely to communicate the disease to others. ”

“ An esteemed New York physician, Dr. Prince A. Morrow, did excellent pioneer work in calling attention to the dangers of venereal disease. But, as is the case with so many "reformers," he permitted his zeal to run away with him occasionally, and he made statements which caused and are still causing the judicious to grieve. The statement, for instance, that there is more venereal disease among innocent, virtuous wives than among prostitutes is one to cause the real honest investigator to weep (over the human tendency to exaggeration) , or to burst out in uproarious laughter. ”

“ In addition, we have to reckon with dangers to physical health; among these we have the direct consequences of premature misuse of the genital organs, and, above all, the danger of venereal infection. In a great many cases, sexual offences against children are brought to light only when, on examining the child, gonorrhoeal or syphilitic infection is disclosed. Many authorities hold that the superstitious hope of curing venereal disease by sexual intercourse with an innocent child, is a comparatively frequent source of such infection in children. ”

“ Probably the most pitiful of all venereal patients are those unfortunates who either have no friends in whom they could confide, or who, thru a false feeling of shame, do not care to have a personal consultation, and resort to a treatment by mail thru one of the quack medical concerns. In no other class of diseases, in fact in no other walk of life, is human ignorance, suffering, and fear so cruelly and unscrupulously abused and penalized as in venereal diseases. ”

“ Prevented at Any Cost.—However, no matter what the cost may be to the state, no matter what the exaction from the individual, the grave perils of venereal disease to society must be prevented. We owe it to the cause of humanity that there be fewer victims born into a world of eternal night, that from a parentage of polluted blood there spring no longer hosts of children with feeble misshapen bodies or with tarnished intellects, death-marked at the door of life. ”

“ It is a very common disease, and the public know little of the evil consequences which may follow what they have persisted in regarding as a simple complaint. From its prevalence and its complications it is one of the most serious diseases that affect mankind.
As regards treatment of venereal disease of all kinds, it should be clearly understood that the causative germs are well known and can readily be destroyed immediately after exposure to infection by thorough cleansing with antiseptic lotion or ointment. ”

“ Necessity for Douching Before and After Suspicious Intercourse—Formulæ for Douches—Precautions Against Non-venereal Sources of Infection—Syphilis Transmitted by Dentist's Instruments—Manicurists and Syphilis—Promiscuous Kissing a Source of Syphilitic Infection.
In his book, Sex Knowledge for Men, the author treated the subject of prevention of venereal disease very thoroughly. Men need this knowledge. As men will indulge in illicit relations, we must teach them to guard themselves against venereal infection. ”

“ If there were no adultery at all, there would be no work for at least 50% of doctors. So inextricably indeed has venereal disease caught mankind in its clutches that even the best doctors have been forced to admint that, so long as adultery and prostitution continue, there is no hope for the human race. The medicines for these diseases are so poisonous that, although they may appear to have done some good for the time being, they give rise to other and still more terrible diseases which are handed down from generation to generation. ”

“ The venereal disease may be considered in different degrees; namely the first and second infection.
To the first, I consider the gonorrhœa or clap, the phimosis, paraphimosis, chordee, priapism, shankers, dysuria, bubo, swelled testicles, and venereal excrescences, in their various degrees, in a local state. To the second infection, I consider those diseases that proceed from the venereal virus, infecting the whole mass of blood; namely cutaneous diseases; glandular diseases; diseases of the bones ”

“ If infection with a venereal disease meant simply the death of the infected individual, it would really be very much less deleterious to society than is the present condition. When the young man "sows wild oats" and catches incidently gonorrhea, that twenty years ago was considered a sort of a "good joke," he will, in a large proportion of cases, lay the foundation for broken health and will run a serious risk of transmitting the disease to an innocent, pure wife. ”

“ Though the venereal disease is generally the fruit of unlawful embraces, yet it may be communicated to the innocent as well as the guilty. Infants, nurses, midwives, and married women whose husbands lead dissolute lives, are often affected with it, and frequently lose their lives by not being aware of their danger in due time. The unhappy condition of such persons will certainly plead our excuse, if any excuse be necessary, for endeavouring to point out the symptoms and cure of this too common disease. ”

“ We cannot expect to do away all at once with the feeling that venereal disease is "shameful." It may not even be desirable. But we can at least make clear that, in so far as there is any shame, it must be a question between the individual and his own conscience. From the point of view of science, syphilis and gonorrhoea are just diseases, like cancer and consumption, the only diseases with which they can be compared in the magnitude and extent of their results, and therefore it is best to speak of them by their scientific names, instead of trying to invent vague and awkward circumlocutions. ”