THE GREAT PROCREATION FETISH i8i 



than the evils they strive to combat. Put 

 simply, they attempt to render as certain as 

 possible the poisoning of all those who offend 

 against their moral code. 



We have dwelt on the fact that besides alcohol 

 and opium, the principal causes of human elimina- 

 tion are the zymotic diseases, that is diseases due 

 to living microbes which are communicated directly 

 or indirectly from one sufferer to another. Against 

 all virulent zymotic diseases which are communi- 

 cated indirectly through the medium of air, earth, 

 or water, and are therefore difficult to control, we 

 take precautions. But against the venereal con- 

 tagious diseases — the most loathsome of all — which 

 are communicated by actual contact only, and which 

 are therefore particularly easy to control, we take 

 none.^ If a man has small-pox we isolate him ; 

 if he comes from a plague-stricken ship we place 



1 Sanitation is of little use against the air-borne diseases. We 

 cannot disinfect the air. Its volume is too vast, its flow too swift. 

 Scarlatina, measles, chicken-pox, whooping-cough, and influenza are 

 as common as ever they were. Small-pox has been banished only by 

 cutting off" the food supply of the microbes, by artificially making the 

 mass of the people immune. Earth- and water-borne diseases are 

 more easy to control ; but notwithstanding all our efforts, the race is 

 still plagued by consumption, cholera, enteric fever, and other com- 

 plaints. But rabies, a contagious disease {i.e. one communicated by 

 direct contact only), is so easy to control that it is exceedingly rare. 

 Possibly leprosy should be placed in this category. It also has been 

 banished from England. The venereal diseases, because as easily 

 controlled as rabies, should be as rare. Nevertheless the community 

 is ravaged by them. 



