LUTHER BURBANK 



purpose of such laws is obviously commendable, 

 but it may seriously be doubted whether public 

 opinion has yet been educated to the point where 

 it will give the laws adequate support. We have 

 advanced a long way in recent years, but there is 

 still a large measure of reticence regarding the 

 discussion of topics directly involved in measures 

 of this character. The futility of attempting to 

 prevent the union of young persons who have 

 decided to marry is matter of common knowledge. 



Moreover, a really comprehensive law that pre- 

 vented the marriage of all incompetents would 

 fail of its ultimate object, in that it would mainly 

 result in substituting illegitimate children for 

 legitimate ones. 



As regards the commendable attempt to restrict 

 the dissemination of venereal diseases, which 

 is the essential motive of the laws just cited, it 

 seems probable that this end would be more ad- 

 vantageously effected by comprehensive sanitary 

 laws placing all venereal diseases on a par with 

 other contagious maladies; requiring all cases of 

 such diseases to be reported to the health boards, 

 and inflicting severe penalties on all persons who 

 knowingly transmit these diseases. 



Such a sanitary code would obviously be diffi- 

 cult of carrying out, but the great strides that 

 public hygiene has made in recent years warrant 

 the hope that such measures as those just sug- 

 gested will before long be thought worthy of trial 

 everywhere. It seems more logical to endeavor 

 to stamp out these virulently contagious and 



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