i84 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



laudanum or of prussic acid rather than of this 

 particular poison ? Which of us is there that 

 would not take the life of a sister or daughter 

 with his own hands rather than permit her thus 

 to perish ? We send for the propagation of this 

 or that form, it may be this or that preposterous 

 form of Christianity, missionaries to savages in all 

 parts of the world; but at home for "moral" 

 reasons we carefully preserve terrible diseases, 

 which, introduced by us, swiftly exterminate 

 them.-* Thereafter, with smug pharisaical satisfac- 

 tion, peculiarly British, but abhorred and derided 

 by the rest of the civilised world, we enter into 

 their inheritance, and render thanks unto God for 

 the favour we have found. 



In 1864 a feeble attempt to control the con- 

 tagious diseases was initiated. Immense numbers 

 of soldiers and sailors were known to be afflicted. 

 The efficiency of our military services, which 

 absorb so many of the flower of our youth, was 



' India furnishes an example of the extent to which venereal disease 

 is spread by the British. The native soldiers suffer from venereal 

 disease to an extent much less than the British, proving that the 

 complaints are not very prevalent among the population. The 

 venereal disease rate is falling in the British army at home. It 

 should from the same causes {vide Appendix J) fall among the white 

 soldiers in India. Nevertheless it is rising at an alarming rate. In 

 some stations more than half the soldiers are permanently in- 

 capacitated from this one cause — the explanation being, of course, 

 that the white soldiers are poisoning the population around their 

 cantonments and being poisoned in turn. 



