558 PATHOGENIC MICROORGANISMS 



When we consider, on the other hand, these dangers as balanced against 

 the danger of the uncontrolled circulation among their fellows of indi- 

 viduals capable of infecting others, there seems very little choice in our 

 minds between the two evils. Moreover, we believe it would be possible 

 to develop a system of reporting whereby the reported individual could 

 have the record destroyed when he could bring a certificate of cure from 

 a responsible clinic or physician. This, we believe, would add a further 

 inducement to proper care and cure. At any rate, we believe that the 

 prompt report of cases, following them up from municipal health 

 bureaus, and prompt destruction of the record when the individual has 

 been cured, will greatly aid in this matter. 



3. H capitalization. It will probably be impossible to hospitalize 

 all infectious cases of venereal diseases because, unfortunately from 

 the public-health point of view, these patients are not incapacitated 

 during their most infectious stages. We are able to confine a case of 

 smallpox with or without consent, but diseases that in their remote 

 possibilities are responsible for far greater injury and unhappiness, are 

 permitted to walk about and follow their own devices, through the 

 course of their illnesses. The eventual ideal would consist in making 

 physicians responsible for the isolation of cases which came under 

 their care and to hospitalize those who could not be taken care of in 

 their own quarters. Hospitalization in separate hospitals would confer 

 so great a stigma that it would probably be impossible. It might also 

 be impossible to admit these cases into general hospitals in spite of 

 special arrangements. We do not ourselves believe that compulsory 

 hospitalization could be enforced at the present time. It should be 

 looked upon, however, as an attempt worth making, as soon as educa- 

 tion and general public cooperation has reached a point at which success 

 would seem at least not totally out of question. It is our opinion that 

 the sooner the attitude toward these diseases is made one purely of 

 sanitary principles, and the more purely moral factors are allowed 

 to take care of themselves under the influence of increased civilization 

 and sense of community responsibility, the sooner these ends may be 

 accomplished. 



While it is of course quite impossible to do justice to as funda- 

 mentally important a problem as the sanitary control of venereal dis- 

 eases in a section of this kind, it has seemed to us of great importance 

 to at least point out to physicians and bacteriologists who may read 

 this book, the enormous responsibility that falls upon them whenever 

 they are in a position to deal with cases of this kind. 



