186 THE EIGHT TO BE WELL BORN 



no way of knowing about the hereditary or 

 physical fitness of a young man for mar- 

 riage. Through investigation of medi- 

 cal records, I have been forced to know of 

 a great many marriages too awful for 

 words, where young married women have 

 left their happy homes for a life of misery 

 and suffering and died in ignorance of the 

 cause of their troubles. I believe the time 

 is very near when adequate relief will be 

 given to parents and to daughters, by mak- 

 ing a medical examination and a family 

 history a prerequisite for the marriage 

 license for a young man. The world is be- 

 ginning to realize that it is just as bad for 

 a man to murder his wife by infecting her 

 with a foul, loathsome and usually fatal dis- 

 ease as to murder her with knife, or axe, or 

 gun, or drug. Laws soon will be enacted 

 which will allow the medical examiner to 

 protect women and their unborn children. 

 I look forward to the time when the law 

 will require the physician to make a public 

 record of the names of all men victims of 

 syphilis. "When this is done, the end of 

 the "black plague" is in sight. Publicity 



