302 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



the original syphilis may make itself felt further, although 

 eventually sterility must be the result of this pronounced 

 degeneracy. 



These, then, are the results of syphilis, as they make them- 

 selves felt through three or four successive generations, before 

 sterility ultimately puts an end to this influence by effectually 

 preventing further reproduction. Can it be maintained that a 

 disease capable of producing these results is a " benign " 

 disease ; or that, in order to subserve an old and now exploded 

 theory of laissez-faire, erected into a political dogma, we are 

 justified in taking no prophylactic measures to safeguard the 

 race against the obvious perils of this disease ? Since the social 

 aspects of syphilis became known, since it was recognised that 

 syphilis has hereditary influences which were formerly unsus- 

 pected, that it is complicated by all the category of parasyphi- 

 litic complaints, it has been necessary to greatly increase our 

 estimate of the racial dangers of the disease. 



Let us now turn our attention briefly to a point which is 

 interesting because it furnishes the material for many an objec- 

 tion to prophylactic measures against syphilis. It is said by 

 those who object to the organisation of prophylactic measures 

 against the disease that those who contract it contract it solely 

 through their own imprudence ; and although this may be some- 

 times the case, it is a fact that the disease is generally contracted 

 as a result of inexperience, which is a very different thing. A 

 classification of cases calculated on 11,000 patients (10,000 men 

 and 1,000 women) by Dr. Edmond Fournier in Paris shows us 

 that 5,145 cases out of these 11,000 were contracted between the 

 ages of eighteen and twenty-five inclusive — that is to say, that 

 over 50 per cent, were contracted during early manhood, before 

 the first twenty-five years are over ; the numbers progress 

 steadily from seventeen to twenty-three, at which latter age is 

 attained the maximum of 819 cases in 11,000, or over 7 per cent. 

 When we reflect that nearly 8 per cent, of the total number of 



