40 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



tiire of the disease, thereby overcoming that unfortunate 

 secrecy which has caused untold thousands of consump- 

 tives to lose their opportunity of recovery. 



On account of a false sense of modesty upon the part of 

 the people, or on account of the unfortunate manner in 

 which educators had approached the subject, relatively 

 little progress had been made throughout the United 

 States in the campaign against venereal disease until our 

 participation in the war. For the most part, venereal 

 disease literature had been written in a style which indi- 

 cated that the author regarded his subject as an improper 

 one, or, upon the other hand, colored with such lurid hues 

 as to make the subject morbidly interesting. The recogni- 

 tion of the tremendous prevalence of gonorrhea and 

 syphilis in the armies of Europe, and the confirmation of a 

 similar condition among the young men of the United 

 States through the reports of the draft boards, caused the 

 Federal and State governments to take a firm hand in the 

 venereal disease campaign and to approach it in the same 

 sane and practical manner that they have approached 

 other communicable diseases. The change which venereal 

 disease literature has undergone during the past year is 

 quite astonishing, and the response of the people of all 

 classes to this educational campaign has been equally sur- 

 prising. There is now good reason to anticipate that, on 

 account of the impetus given the subject by the war, a suc- 

 cessful fight will be made against social disease on a 

 simple public health and disease prevention basis. Ques- 

 tions of morals and of religion, which formerly confused 

 this subject, have been generally eliminated and the 

 problem has been attacked with the same frankness and 

 candor that marked the action of the Surgeon General's 

 office in establishing stations for preventive treatment in 

 the various camps and cantonments. 



Illinois was the second state in the union to join with 

 the Federal government in its battle against venereal dis- 

 ease, and the rules and regulations of the State Depart- 

 ment of Public Health, which were first applied in the 

 zones surrounding military cantonments and later ex- 

 tended throughout the entire State, have been accepted as 

 practical in application, rigid enough to produce salutary 

 results and yet not so drastic that they would produce 

 unfortunate reaction. 



