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American Charities

Creator: Amos G. Warner (author)
Date: 1908
Publisher: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York
Source: Straight Ahead Pictures Collection

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The following statements made by high scientific authority and published for the information of teachers by the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis sufficiently describe the extent and the effects of venereal disease in this country: --

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"Syphilis is estimated by different authorities as affecting from 6 to 18 per cent of the whole population. It is usually very slowly developed, and the final stages may appear as late as fifty or sixty years after infection. It is a curable disease if properly treated for the necessary length of time. That the later lesions are so common is because adequate treatment is often not received, which is of the greatest consequence, since syphilis is the one disease inherited in full virulence. 'Gonorrhoea is one of the most widespread and devious of transmissible diseases and more than any other a cause of chronic ill-health and permanent disability' (Osler). This disease, too, is curable if treatment is begun early and persisted in long enough and with sufficient skill. Beyond a certain stage in both sexes there is no cure, although to some cases the possibility of transmission ceases."

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"The larger proportion of pelvic troubles among women and of surgery of the pelvic organs is due to gonorrhoea; probably one-half of childless marriages and of 'one-child families' are due to this cause. It is certain that a large proportion of abortions and miscarriages are due to syphilis; also a considerable percentage of early mortality, inferior mentality, degeneracy, and insanity. We have more than 10,000 totally blind from gonorrhoea; this does not include those partially blind from gonorrhoea and syphilis." (67)


(67) Educational Pamphlet No. 2, "Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophy-laxis," p. 7. Similar facts in Morrow, "Social Diseases."

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The social evil and the diseases resulting from it have been recognized as corrupting and degenerative forces in society for many centuries, but in modern times there has grown up what has been called "a conspiracy of silence" on the part of the press, the clergy, public educators, and even of physicians concerning them. In spite of the fact that these diseases are as virulent and more widespread than smallpox, or leprosy, and that their ultimate victims are innocent women and children, no measures are taken to prevent their inception or their dissemination.

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In the fall of 1900, the city of New York was startled by discoveries of the extent and flagrancy of offences against morality and decency in certain districts. At a citizens' meeting a Committee of Fifteen was appointed to institute an inquiry, publish the facts, promote legislation, and suggest measures for lessening the allurements and incentives to vice and crime. Their report took the form of an extensive study of the history of the regulation of vice by Professor Alvin S. Johnson, concluding with an outline of a policy for the control of the social evil in New York. (68) At about the same time the New York Tenement House Commissioners published in their report an account of prostitution as a tenement-house evil. (69) The coincidence of these revelations, with an unusual awakening of interest in venereal diseases among the medical profession both in Europe and America, resulted in the formation of the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis in 1905. (70) For the first time, in this country, this subject is being studied and discussed by laymen as well as physicians of the highest standing without hesitation and without concealment.


(68) The Social Evil," preface, pp. v-vii, 1902.

(69) De Forest and Veiller, vol. ii., pp. 15-25, 1903.

(70) "Transactions," etc., vol. i., 1906.

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Professor Johnson shows that vice, so far from being a constant and invariable element in social life, has varied widely at different periods in response to social, economic, and religious changes, and has a direct relation to war, commercial disturbances, congestion of population, and employment. He infers that since the causes of vice do not operate with uniform force, it is probable that even if vice cannot be eradicated, it can nevertheless be controlled and therefore limited. Modern prostitution is shaped by the industrial and social conditions of city life -- the masculine factor made up of the army of unmarried workers, the feminine factor, of girls and women who have made "a quasi-voluntary choice of prostitution as a means of livelihood." The conditions which develop masculine vice are complex and intimately connected with the cityward movement of population. The country boy, already informed by the vulgar talk of older men, goes to the city; his income for some years will be too small to marry upon; his interests are usually self-centred; the cheap amusements open to him are generally more or less suggestive and he is influenced continually by the prevalent theory that the sex instinct must be satisfied for the sake of health. At the same time the principal check upon conduct -- the opinion of one's neighbors -- is lacking, while the allurements of vice are constantly present.

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