JUVENILE SYPHILIS 303 



cases are thus contracted at the early age of twenty-three, we 

 have an idea of the gravity of the evil. How can we look at 

 these figures without becoming aware of their serious nature, when 

 we see that more than one-half of the total number of syphilitic 

 victims have not passed the age of twenty-five ? We have no 

 wish to exaggerate, but really it is a serious thing for the race 

 that more than one-half of the number of its syphilitic patients 

 should be young men, not yet married, who are still destined 

 to marry, and destined to produce for the misfortune of society 

 a crowd of misbegotten progeny, tainted with all the evils which 

 syphilis is apt to bring in its train, if they are not aborted, or 

 stillborn, or carried off early. If syphilis attacked as a general 

 rule that type of person known in German as a Jubdgreis, and 

 who is past the age of procreating a family, the evil would be 

 much less. But it attacks precisely, with particular virulence, 

 the youth on which depends all the future of the race, all its 

 virility, all its chances of survival in the struggle for existence. 

 And the results of syphilis for the individual, for the family, and 

 for the descendants, we have already seen.^ 



Thus, the argiunent as to the persons who contract syphilis 

 having contracted it knowing what they did, and knowing the 

 possible consequences of their imprudence, falls to the ground ; 

 unless, indeed, it be seriously contended that a young man in 

 the first twenties, as a general rule — for every rule, of course, has 

 its notable exceptions — is well aware of the pathological nature 

 and consequences of syphiUs ; if this be argued, there is nothing 

 further to be said, except to retort that it is not a fact. The 

 young man of twenty to twenty-three who has contracted 

 syphilis has contracted it not so much through imprudence as 



^ Further examination of Dr. Edmond Foumier's statistics shows that, 

 out of 10,000 cases, 817 are contracted before the age of twenty (in the 

 case of men), or about 8 per cent. In the case of women, out of 1,000 cases, 

 209 are contracted before the age of twenty, or 20 per cent. It can scarcely 

 be maintained that boys and girls of sixteen to nineteen years of age 

 " act with the full experience of what they do." 



