36 OPENING SESSION 



indeed into the sexual diseases; their cause, their effect, 

 their results and consequences upon the race and the future 

 generation secret diseases as to which society shows a 

 prurient delicacy which is dangerous and must be dimin- 

 ished. I am glad to say that the Local Government Board 

 has a report nearly ready for issue -on two or three aspects 

 of sexual diseases that I trust may guide you in your work 

 and in your investigations. I would like this Conference to 

 ask Dr. Mott, Dr. Routh, Dr. Ballantyne, Dr. Kerr, and 

 several other members of the medical profession, whom 

 this Conference could agree upon, to come together and see 

 whether the layman cannot be better instructed how to fight 

 these sexual diseases than he now is. It is an important, 

 a serious, a critical, in some respects a vital case, and I 

 would strongly urge it upon you for your consideration. 

 Now in this regard there is no reason for us to be alarmed, 

 certainly not to be depressed and I trust on this subject 

 we may keep the theorist and the factious politician out of 

 it altogether. I say 'this for only one reason that you will 

 all appreciate. You will remember the tremendous agita- 

 tion that the women of England to their credit carried on in 

 1884. In 1884, rightly or wrongly I think rightly the 

 Contagious Diseases Acts were abolished. What has 

 happened ? Since young men and young women were 

 wisely deprived of the false security that the Contagious 

 Diseases Acts pretended to give them but did not secure for 

 them, what has happened? In 1884 95 deaths per million 

 living occurred from venereal diseases; in 1910 that 95 

 had dropped to 47. In 1884 190 children per 100,000 births 

 died under the age of i year from syphilis; in 1910 the 190 

 had dropped to 116. In 1884 106 per 10,000 candidates for 

 recruitment in the Army were rejected on account of 

 syphilis; in 1870 the number was 158; in 1910 the 106 of 

 1884 had dropped down to only 16, a result very creditable 

 to the improvement in cleanliness of the civilian population, 

 the reservoir from which our Army and Navy is recruited. 

 In 1884 the Home Army admissions to hospital for venereal 

 disease were 270 per thousand; in 1911 only 60. In 1897 

 5J2 per thousand of our Indian Army were admitted to 

 hospital for the same disease; in 1910 the 522 per thousand 

 of fifteen years ago had dropped to 55. In 1911, of 48,000 

 recruits only 81, or less than 2 per 1,000, were rejected for 

 venereal disease, and in the same year the death-rate of our 

 Home Army from all causes was only 2*5 per 1,000, a record 

 of which all of us all of you doctors and especially the 

 women can be proud. (Cheers.) 



Now if venereal disease is tested by the decline in the 



