THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 651 



Mr. Holmes Coote, F. R. C. S., Surgeon and Lecturer on Surgery 

 at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, says : 



" It is a lamentable truth that the troubles which respectable, hard-working 

 married women of the working-class undergo are more trying to the health, 

 and detrimental to the looks, than any of the irregularities of the harlot's 

 career." 



Again, it is stated by Mr. Byrne, Surgeon to the Dublin Lock 

 Hospital, that "there is not nearly so much syphilis as there used to 

 be ; " and, after describing some of the serious results that were once 

 common, he adds : " You will not see such a case for years a fact 

 that no medical man can have failed to remark." Mr. "W". Burns 

 Thompson, F. R. C. S., for ten years head of the Edinburgh Dispen- 

 sary, testifies as follows : 



" I have had good opportunities of knowing the prevailing diseases, and I 

 can only say that the representations given by the advocates of these Acts are 

 to me perfectly unintelligible ; they seem to me to be gross exaggeration." 



Mr. Surgeon-Major Wyatt, of the Coldstream Guards, when ex- 

 amined by the Lords' Committee, stated that he quite concurred with 

 Mr. Skey. Answering question 700, he said : 



" The class of syphilitic diseases which we see are of a very mild character ; 

 and, in fact, none of the ravages which used formerly to be committed on the 

 appearance and aspect of the men are now to be seen. ... It is an undoubted 

 fact that in this country and in France the character of the disease is much 

 diminished in intensity. Question: 708. I understand you to say, that in your 

 opinion the venereal disease has generally, independent of the Act, become more 

 mitigated, and of a milder type? Answer: Yes; that is the experience of all 

 surgeons, both civil and military." 



Dr. Druitt, President of the Association of the Medical Officers of 

 Health for London, affirmed at one of its meetings 



"that speaking from thirty-nine years' experience, he was in a position to say 

 that cases of syphilis in London were rare among the middle and better classes, 

 and soon got over." 



And even Mr. Acton, a specialist, to whom more than to any other 

 man the Acts are due, admitted before the Lords' Committee that 

 " the disease is milder than it was formerly." 



Like testimony is given by Continental surgeons, among whom it 

 was long ago said by Ambrose Pare, that the disease " is evidently 

 becoming milder every day ; " and by Auzias Turenne, that " it is on 

 the wane all over Europe." Astruc and Diday concur in this state- 

 ment. And the latest authority on syphilis, Lancereaux, whose work 

 is so valued that it has been translated by the Sydenham Society, as- 

 serts-that 



" In these cases, which are far from being rare, syphilis is but an abortive 

 disease ; slight and benignant, it does not leave behind any troublesome trace of 



