196 



NATURE 



[April 14, 192 1 



gether they constitute a principal, if not quite the 

 principal, cause of poverty, insanity, paralysis, 

 blindness, heart disease, disfigurement, sterility, 

 disablement, and the life of pain to which many 

 women are condemned. Our hospitals, asylums, 

 and homes for the broken are crowded with their 

 victims. The cost in loss of efficiency, therefore 

 in money, is incalculable. More than anything else 

 thev are responsible for the blunting of the moral 

 sense, not only in the people who poison for 

 private profit or pleasure, but also in those who, 

 careless of this vast flood of misery, seek to 

 obstruct the path of the reformer." 



Venereal diseases, the author states in chap, iii., 

 on "Instinct and Reason," would die out in a few- 

 years if all men and women were chaste; but he 

 points out that sexual love is an instinct in that 

 it is not learned. It develops infallibly as the 

 individual matures, and without antecedent ex- 

 perience it manifests itself at the proper time. 

 Can it, therefore, be hoped that preaching and 

 teaching will make all men and women avoid 

 promiscuous sexual intercourse when social con- 

 ditions are such as they are? 



This and the next chapters on "Development of 

 Mind and Character " and " Inclination and 

 Morality " show philosophic reasoning, and are 

 interesting as embodying the opinions and judg- 

 ments of an original-minded man of wide know- 

 ledge and with experience of human character. 

 The author discusses the moral side of the ques- 

 tion, and says : "No one could, or would, be moral 

 unless he had learned to be moral." The instinct, 

 always the same in kind if not in degree, is passed 

 from generation to generation by Nature from the 

 most remote times. He shows how sexual 

 morality changes with religion and racial tradi- 

 tions ; he points out that "good teaching by 

 adults in matters sexual is hopelessly out of reach 

 in England"; and, "because the country is not 

 of one mind as regards morals, venereal disease 

 therefore is not likely to be banished or even 

 checked by an improvement in public morality. 

 Tlie only conceivable alteration is sanitation." 

 A very important statement is the following : — 



"There is a terrible superstition very current 

 among the ignorant that venereal disease may be 

 cured by ' passing it on, ' Above all, fear of in- 

 fection causes many men to seek satisfaction of 

 their desires from * decent ' women, as many an 

 unhappy girl has found to her ruin. It is from 

 the ranks of these unfortunates that the whole 

 army of prostitutes is recruited, for no woman 

 voluntarily begins a career of immorality as a 

 prostitute. On the whole, then, as far as I am 

 able to judge, venereal disease does not check im- 

 morality, but tends vastly to increase it." 



Chap. vi. is an interesting account of " Microbic 

 Diseases " and how they have been efficiently dealt 

 NO. 2685, VOL. 107] 



with by the application of scientific methods. 

 In chap, vii., " Metchnikoff," the author gives an 

 interesting historical account of the origin of 

 venereal disease and its prevalence. 



Chap. viii. deals with "The Report of the Royal 

 Commission." The author criticises it most 

 severely, and, we think, unfairly, for not recom- 

 mending the application of Metchnikoff's discovery 

 as a means of preventing venereal disease, but it 

 must be remembered that the evidence appeared to 

 show that salvarsan treatment in the primary 

 stage would lead to a cure. The author gives 

 the Commission no credit for creating a new 

 public opinion upon the hitherto "hidden plague " 

 and the urgent necessity of preventing it. 



We can, however, understand that a reformer 

 like Sir Archdall Reid, with the courage of his 

 convictions, must be forgiven if he attacks relent- 

 lessly all who differ, or seemingly differ^ 

 from him, because willing to compromise in the 

 hope that public opinion may be more easily 

 changed and brought round to a sensible view. 



The National Council was formed to promote 

 the recommendations of the Royal Commission, 

 and it comes in for severe criticism — rightly so, 

 we think — for a number of its medical experts 

 left the National Council to found the Society for 

 the Prevention of Venereal Disease because they 

 felt convinced that the policy of moral suasion, 

 teaching, and fear of the serious consequences of 

 contracting the disease had not had any marked 

 deterrent effect upon promiscuous sexual inter- 

 course and the incidence of venereal disease. 



Chap, ix, deals with "Venereal Disease in the 

 Army," This is a very interesting chapter, 

 because the author tells how he successfully 

 dealt with venereal disease. Every man joining 

 was medically examined within twenty-four 

 hours, and instructed by lecture and poster how 

 to avoid infection : first, to avoid exposure to in- 

 fection ; secondly, by self-disinfection immediately 

 after exposure. For this purpose the soldier must 

 carry in his waistcoat pocket a small flat bottle 

 containing i in looo of solution of permanganate 

 of potash and a swab of cotton-wool. Instructions 

 were given to swab the parts exposed to infection 

 with the disinfectant immediately after inter- 

 course. This simple method, thoroughly carried 

 out, had the effect that venereal disease vanished 

 from his unit, " In two years and four months, 

 during which time 20,000 men must have passed 

 through my hands, only seven men were infected " 

 (p. 130). Does not the author, having regard to 

 the following sentence from p. 132, mean 2000? 

 At the end of this chapter the author states that 

 "200 men belonging to one unit who came for 

 demobilisation from the Continent, and arrived 



