April 14, 192 1] 



NATURE 



195 



The Conquest of Venereal Disease. 



Prevention of Venereal Disease. By Sir G. 

 Archdall Reid. With an introductory chapter 

 by Sir H. Bryan Donkin, Pp. xviii + 447. 

 (London : William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920.) 

 155. net. 



SIR ARCHDALL REID commences the pre- 

 face to this volume with the following sen- 

 tence, characteristic of a man with strong con- 

 victions and courage to express them : " If the 

 evidence in this book be true, the public should 

 know." 



It is fitting that Sir Bryan Donkin should write 

 an introductory chapter to this very important 

 work, for it was he who first, by a letter to the 

 : Times in January, 1917, publicly championed the 

 cause of self-disinfection, and set the ball rolling 

 in favour of the only obvious practical method of 

 prevention of venereal disease by_ the adoption of 

 the scientific principles founded upon the discovery 

 of Metchnikoff and Roux, published in 1906. This 

 showed conclusively that syphilis could be success- 

 fully prevented by the prompt use of calomel cream 

 "after the subjects of the experiments, both human 

 and simian, had been carefully inoculated with 

 ^ the poison of this disease." 



Sir Bryan rightly gives credit to Dr. H. N. 

 Robson, who courageously advocated this method 

 in a book entitled " Sexual Disease and its 

 Medical Prevention," published in 1909. He also 

 points out that Sir Frederick Mott, a member of 

 the Royal Commission, had written (prior to the 

 war), in an authoritative medical treatise concern- 

 ing the application of Metchnikoff 's experiments, 

 that "it would be well if this were widely known 

 and practised in the civil population," which, we 

 might add, he has continued to advocate ever 

 since. 



This work of Sir Archdall Reid is issued under 

 the auspices of the Society for the Prevention of 

 Venereal Disease, and throughout we find evidence 

 of the struggle which has taken place between the 

 National Council for Combating Venereal Disease 

 and the principle of self-disinfection advocated by 

 the former society. 



In chap. ii. "The LVgency of the Problem " is 

 discussed, and we quote this very important state- 

 ment of the author in support thereof: "After 

 €very great war a considerable increase of vene- 

 real disease has been recorded ; the greatest of all 

 wars is not likely to furnish an exception." The 

 author roughly calculates that "some 2,000,000 

 men suffered during the five years of war." 



Referring to his own experience in the pre- 

 vention of venereal disease at Portsmouth, the 

 NO. 2685, VOL. 107] 



author says : "Towards the end of 1917 it became 

 known at the War Office that a method existed of 

 protecting troops from venereal disease so effective 

 that the rate of infection was reduced to 1-5 per 

 thousand. Arrangements were made to apply this 

 method to the whole Army." It looked at first as 

 if the authorities were going to apply efficiently the 

 simple sanitary instruction by medical officers, and 

 thereafter to institute a vigorous inquiry if any 

 medical officer failed to achieve success. But 

 nothing was done to apply the method in a 

 thorough and efficient manner, and, to quote the 

 author's own words : — 



"In the interval between the resolve to intro- 

 duce the new method and the provision of the new 

 apparatus an incredible thing had happened. At 

 the time of the great German offensive there were, 

 but need not have been, in the venereal hospitals 

 or in depots as convalescents British, French, and 

 American soldiers, mature and trained men, other- 

 wise fit for active service, sufficient not for an 

 army corps only, but for a great army. All these 

 men had become diseased after the authorities had 

 learned how to prevent disease. They were put 

 out of action, and the Allied cause brought to the 

 verge of ruin by the fanaticism of a few ' influ- 

 ential people ' and the complaisance or timidity 

 of a few obliging officials." 



The author goes on to say : " I am sure I have 

 not exaggerated as to the effect that the failure to 

 deal resolutely with venereal disease had in the 

 fortunes of the British Army at the time of its 

 greatest need." 



We do not agree with all the author says re- 

 garding the Final Report of the Royal Commission 

 on Venereal Disease, or with his deductions there- 

 from ; he states that the evidence received indi- 

 cated that the number of persons who have been 

 infected with syphilis, acquired or congenital, 

 cannot fall below 10 per cent, of the whole popula- 

 tion in the large cities, and the percentage 

 affected with gonorrhoea must greatly exceed this 

 proportion. He assumes that, because cases of 

 gonorrhoea are six or seven times as common as 

 those of syphilis, 70-80 per cent, of the 

 population of large towns have suffered from 

 venereal disease. Such a deduction, in our 

 judgment, is not warranted, for there is the 

 obvious fallacy that a man may have several 

 attacks of gonorrhoea, and we do not think 

 he is right, therefore, in asserting that such 

 a large proportion as 30-50 per cent, of the in- 

 habitants of Great Britain have suffered from 

 venereal disease. Sir Archdall Reid is probably 

 correct when he states : — • 



" Venereal diseases are, in fact, by far the most 

 prevalent of all the more serious diseases. To- 



