294 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



is to combat disease with all the means at its disposal, on account 

 of the dangers which it presents for the eugenic welfare of the 

 race. 



As to the second consequence which syphilis in the husband 

 entails on the family — ^namely, dissolution, or, at all events, 

 weakening, of the marriage-tie — it is needless to enter into details. 

 It will suf6.ce to say that it is a consequence fatal to the stability 

 of family life, which is the groundwork of social life, and that 

 it is a consequence which is more frequent than might be sup- 

 posed. We will come at once to the third consequence for the 

 family, that the bread-winner, as the result of syphilitic disease, is 

 incapable of supporting the family which he has founded. 



In considering the social and racial •consequences of syphilis, 

 it is important to note a clinical fact observed by Professor 

 Foumier to the effect that 49 per cent, of the expressions of 

 tertiary syphilis manifest themselves after the first period of ten 

 years of the syphilitic infection ;i to be exact, 2,814 tertiary 

 symptoms out of a total of 5,767 manifested themselves sub- 

 sequent to the tenth year of infection. The repercussion of this 

 clinical observation on the social aspect of syphilis is very con- 

 siderable. It proves, ia a word, that in half the cases in which 

 tertiary syphilis has been observed the married man and father 

 pays the bill, to use Professor Pournier's expression, which has 

 been run up by the young man. In 50 per cent, of cases, if not 

 more, syphilis is contracted in the early years of manhood, 

 between the ages of eighteen and twenty -five ; the general age 

 of marrying is from twenty-five to thirty-five ; and it is the 

 married and responsible man who has to sufier for the impru- 

 dence of the young man, or for neglecting to undergo a proper 

 course of treatment. Those cases of S3rphilis known as benign 

 are particularly dangerous in this respect. How many cases 

 are there of syphilis which are wholly ignored by the patient ! 



* Danger social de la Syphilis, p. 33 ; vide also L'Heredite syphilitique, by 

 A. Foumier. Paris, 1891. 



