398 MEDICAL SECTION 



Dr. MOTT, in reply, said he felt that many of the remarks 

 which had been made were quite just. With regard to 

 infantile mortality several speakers had practically said, 

 ' You have been looking for this, and therefore you have 

 found it, and perhaps you have exaggerated it."' He did 

 not think he had exaggerated it at all, and, moreover, with 

 all the leaders of the profession signing a letter pointing 

 out the importance of the subject he did not think they could 

 say it was unimportant or relatively unimportant with regard 

 to the life and efficiency of the nation and with regard to it 

 as a cause of infantile mortality. Dr. Smith anticipated 

 some remarks he was going to have made, and he was very 

 glad he had done so, for with his vast experience as a 

 medical officer of health he could speak with authority 

 with regard to syphilis not appearing in the death returns. 

 All the cases of general paralysis were, of course, never 

 referred to or called syphilis. Owing to the conspiracy of 

 silence on the part of the Press in dealing with this disease 

 it was an important matter that they should get the infor- 

 mation from the death returns, for until the mortality came 

 to light they would never be able to prevent the disease. 

 They had much more knowledge of the disease now, and 

 knowing the cause they could hope to treat it. Already 

 they had means of treating the disease in ways which they 

 did not possess even a few years ago, so that the time was 

 ripe in his opinion for a thorough investigation of the 

 existence of the disease in the general population, and also 

 for determining what steps should be taken to prevent it 

 spreading amongst the people, and particularly the innocent 

 women and children. They must not judge altogether the 

 result of syphilis by what came before the eye, and he spoke 

 with authority on that subject. He was perfectly certain of 

 what he was saying, that half the cases of organic diseases 

 of the nervous system were due to syphilis; that a large 

 proportion of the diseases of the heart and blood-vessels 

 were due to it; and that a large proportion of the diseases 

 of other organs were due to syphilis. Another very impor- 

 tant matter was this. A little while ago it was stated that 

 there was hardly a case in their lunatic asylums of imbecility 

 due to syphilis. Now there were tests which showed that a 

 much larger proportion of the imbeciles there were then 

 owing to congenital syphilis, although they showed no sign* 

 of it on the body. In Victoria, where the subject ha< 

 received a great deal of attention and had been taken up 

 political unions in a way which was most creditable, the} 

 found that the test had shown a large proportion of syphilii 

 which was -unsuspected, in institutions and amongst th< 



