304 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



PESTILENCES AND MORALISTS * 

 HOWARD W. HAGGARD 



Most civilizations are willing to accept protection from pestilence when 

 the measures involved require only the eradication of insects, quarantine, 

 the draining of swamps, and similar general measures. But when the con- 

 cepts of morals are involved in the prevention, fanaticism is aroused even 

 in the highest civilization. There are two pestilences which thus unfor- 

 tunately involve moral conceptions. They are the plagues of syphilis and 

 gonorrhea. Against them medicine has developed methods of control. They 

 could be eradicated. But as yet civilization has not advanced entirely be- 

 yond the ancient belief that disease is imposed by God in vengeance for 

 sin. 



Those who today still look on syphilis and gonorrhea as punishment for 

 sin have not progressed beyond the ideas of medieval Europe. There was 

 an excuse for the Emperor Maximilian when he issued his edict in 1495 de- 

 claring syphilis to be an affliction from God for the sins of men. Cotton 

 Mather declared syphilis was a punishment "which the Just Judgment of 

 God has reserved for our late Ages. . . ." His ignorance was as great as his 

 religious bigotry which led him to drown helpless old women for witch- 

 craft. 



The reason that syphilis and gonorrhea are not viewed as pestilences lies 

 in the fact that they are involved in one of the greatest problems of civiliza- 

 tion — the relation of the sexes. The veneral diseases are involved in that 

 great sex problem about which the ideals and ethics of Christian civiliza- 

 tion center. A true perspective on sexual matters is lost because the facts 

 are obscured with secrecy and distorted in the imagination. 



A continuous epidemic of syphilis has lasted now for at least five cen- 

 turies. Its origin is a question over which the historians argue. Some main- 

 tain that syphilis occurred in Europe at an early date and was known to 

 ancient civilizations. Others maintain that syphilis was a new disease 

 brought into Europe from the island of Haiti by the sailors of Columbus. 

 The preponderance of evidence points to America as the source of the 

 disease; but the evidence is not absolute. 



Syphihs often attacks the bones and leaves definite marks by which 

 it can be recognized after death. Skeletons of ancient peoples in China, 

 Egypt, and Europe have been examined with this point in view. Thus far 

 no prehistoric or even pre-Columbian skeleton found in Eurasia shows 

 evidence of syphihs. There are marks on them which have been mistaken 

 for those of syphilis, but these marks are now definitely proved to have 



* Reprinted from Devils, Drugs and Doctors by H. W. Haggard with the permission 

 of Harper and Brothers. Copyright 1929, by Harper and Brothers. 



