THE VENEREAL DISEASES.
Note:--We are permitted to quote this chapter from
the book "Man and Woman," by Dr. Wm. T. Belfield,
Professor in Rush Medical College, and Secretary of
the Chicago Society of Social Hygiene organized by
the Chicago Medical Society.
Promiscuous and clandestine indulgence of the reproductive instinct,
everywhere prevalent, is for obvious reasons especially common in our
large cities, where even children of both sexes are frequently initiated
into sexual practices before puberty--a fact familiar to physicians and
often revealed in our Juvenile Courts, though apparently unsuspected by
parents in general. Chicago papers recently recorded the discovery of
such practices among pupils of a public school.
The illicit sexual relation is the chief though not the only factor in
the dissemination of the two serious venereal diseases; so prevalent are
these in our large cities that at least half the adult male population
of all social grades, according to conservative estimates, contract one
or both of them. (In Germany gonorrhoea is the most frequent of all
diseases, with the single exception of measles; in America it is about
as frequent.) Were the evil effects of these diseases limited to those
who seek clandestine indulgence, discussion of this distasteful topic
might be reserved for them only; but since he who has acquired either of
these diseases is, for an indefinite period, a possible source of
contagion to his associates--especially to his bride and her
children--the essential facts should be understood by every adult. These
facts, so far as they concern the public welfare, are here briefly
summarized:
1. Every prostitute, public or private, acquires venereal disease sooner
or later; hence all of them are diseased some of the time, and some of
them practically all of the time. The man who patronizes them risks his
health at every exposure.
2. Medical inspection is an advantage to the prostitute chiefly because
it gives her patron a false sense of security. Even the most elaborate
and painstaking examination--and such is not bestowed upon the
prostitute--may fail to detect a woman's lurking infectiousness; the
perfunctory, routine examination actually made affords but a feeble
protection to the patron. Moreover, at the first cohabitation after such
examination she may acquire disease which she may transmit to every
subsequent patron, until it is perhaps discovered at the next
examination.
3. The many antiseptic washes, lotions and injections upon which the
ignorant rely for protection from disease, are inefficient; not because
they cannot destroy the germs of disease, but because they do not
penetrate the skin and mucous membranes in which these germs have been
sheltered.
4. Gonorrhoea in the male, while usually cured without apparent loss of
health, has always serious possibilities; it kills about one in two
hundred; it permanently maims one in a hundred; it impairs the sexual
power and fertility of a much larger number; it often produces urethral
stricture, which later may cause loss of health and even of life; and in
many cases it causes chronic pain and distress in the sexual organs,
with severe mental annoyance and depression. The loss of health, time
and money entailed by these sequels and their treatment may far exceed
that occasioned by the original disease.
The prevalent notion among the uninformed that gonorrhoea is a mere
annoyance, "no worse than a cold," is based entirely upon lamentable
misapprehension.
5. The persistence of this disease in the deeper parts long after it is
outwardly cured, leads to the unsuspected communication of the disease
to women with whom the individual may cohabit. Among these women may be
his bride, who thereupon enters upon a period of ill-health that may
ultimately compel the mutilation of her sexual organs by a surgical
operation to save her life. Much of the surgery of these organs
performed upon women has been rendered necessary by gonorrhoea,
contracted from the husband. Should she while infected with this
disease, give birth to a child, the baby's eyes may be attacked by the
infection, sometimes with immediate loss of sight. Probably 25 per cent
of the blindness of children is thus caused.
6. The other serious venereal disease, syphilis, infects the blood and
therewith all parts of the body. For months after infection with this
disease, the individual may communicate it by a kiss as well as by
cohabitation; and articles moistened by his secretions--towels, drinking
glasses, pipes, syringes, etc.--may also convey the infection. While
under proper treatment the disease is not dangerous to life in the
earlier years, yet the possibilities of transmitting the contagion
should forbid marriage for at least three years.
The most serious results of syphilis appear years after its acquisition,
when the individual has been lulled into a false sense of security by
long freedom from its outward manifestations. It attacks all organs of
the body, slowly and insidiously producing the symptoms of consumption,
dyspepsia, liver disease and many other ailments. Since we have at
present no reliable means for proving that one who has acquired the
disease is absolutely cured thereof, physicians impress upon these
patients two injunctions: first that they shall take the known remedies
for the disease one or two months in every year, and second that they
shall confide to every physician whom they may consult for any chronic
or obscure ailment, the fact that they have been infected with
syphilis. This latter injunction is especially important; for nearly all
disorders produced by syphilis can be promptly checked by certain
remedies; yet many of these disorders affecting internal organs of the
body, may not be identified as of syphilitic origin by the unsuspecting
physician, who therefore fails to administer the needed and successful
remedy. By directing the doctor's attention to the possible syphilitic
origin of the disease through a frank confession of his early infection,
the patient may save his health or even his life.
These serious and intractable results of syphilis appearing years after
its contraction, occur especially in the shape of disorders of the
blood-vessels and of the nervous system--apoplexy, paralysis, insanity
and locomotor ataxia for example; and these but too often appear after
the man has acquired a family that is dependent upon him for support.
The mental state of the husband and father whose bread-winning capacity
is suddenly abolished through the natural result of his early folly, may
be imagined.
That the syphilitic parent may transmit the disease to his offspring is
common knowledge; some of his children are destroyed by the inherited
disease before birth; others are born to a brief and sickly span of
life; others attain maturity, seriously handicapped in the race of life
by a burden of ill-health, incapacity and misery produced by the
inherited taint; while still others apparently escape these evil
effects.
Absolute freedom from venereal contagion, admittedly a prequisite for
marriage, must be determined by expert medical skill; apparent recovery
does not prove that the disease is really eradicated. Ignorance of the
difference between real and apparent cure is responsible for most of the
venereal infection of brides and taint of children.
The present popular crusade against tuberculosis is laudable and must
result in a distinct restriction of the "great white plague"; but the
greater black plague, syphilis, could be virtually eradicated in a few
generations, through the universal practice of circumcision. Although
apparently introduced into Europe less than four centuries ago, it has
already tainted perhaps one-sixth of the total population, and it is
steadily spreading; in the United States the ratio is but little better.
(These percentages are merely estimates, since there are no official
records of the venereal diseases except in public institutions.)