GONOCOCCUS INFECTION 557 



diseases. It has been unfortunate that the sanitary and moral issues 

 have been so closely interwoven in these diseases, that it has been 

 impossible to create the free discussion and spread the information 

 necessary to obtain the cooperation of the public in these matters. 

 Without public education and cooperation, large scale public health 

 results cannot be achieved. In our opinion, one of the most important 

 factors that have prevented earlier progress in the prevention of venereal 

 disease has been the ignorance of the public in regard to these matters. 

 It has been especially wrong that women of the marriageable age have 

 been kept in ignorance about facts concerning, these infections, an 

 ignorance which has often left them absolutely at the mercy of chance. 

 Accurate and clear information, free of sensationalism, will do more 

 eventually to reduce the venereal rate than any other single factor. 



It is not the function of a book of this kind to go into the very com- 

 plex problems of general sex education, and the moral issues involved. 

 We will restrict ourselves entirely to the purely sanitary phases of the 

 problem. Chief among these are : 



1. Diagnosis. Education and knowledge of the seriousness of these 

 infections should lead to a gradual attraction of patients, away from 

 quacks, to reliable clinics and physicians. The development of diag- 

 nostic clinics by departments of health, the improvement of clinical 

 facilities in large cities, and the better understanding by physicians, as 

 a whole, of the sanitary importance of these relatively simple infections, 

 must lead to more accurate diagnosis and proper instruction of the 

 patient. 



2. Reporting of Venereal Diseases. In a great many communities 

 at the present time gonorrheal infections, as well as other venereal 

 diseases, are regarded, like other communicable diseases, as subject to 

 report. There are many reasons why such reporting systems will meet 

 with objections, and will for many years be unsatisfactory. This, 

 too, we believe is a matter of education, and the fact that it will fail for 

 the present is no reason why the principle should not be upheld. Event- 

 ually we believe it will be accepted as a sensible and necessary step. 

 These diseases are communicable to others during certain stages, and 

 when they are regarded primarily as possibilities for the spread of dis- 

 ease and the public stress is not laid purely on the moral issue, objections 

 to reporting will cease. In our opinion the chief objection that has 

 been raised against the reporting of these diseases is the permanent 

 record, apparent disgrace and perhaps opportunity for blackmail 

 which is opened by the public registration of an individual in this way. 



