385 
I cannot state the truth about the West Indian negro better than 
by quoting my own words from a report already referred to. 
“ This applies with far greater cogency in the West Indies, where 
"the presence of a primary lesion on the genitals of an unmarried 
“peasant girl implies no immorality. Among the people there is, in 
“ a true sense, no sexual immorality. Coitus among children before 
“ puberty is as common as kissing among European children. The 
"normal sexual life of the adult is one of transient concubinage, 
“ which does not restrict casual intercourse any more than does the 
“ occasional marriage. The mother of a large family of unknown or 
“various paternity finds it very tiresome in the daughter of sixteen 
“years to add another infant to her burden. But that is all. She 
“ accepts the grandchild with simple faith, and tells you that God 
“ sent it.” 
Four years ago I was asked by the police to see a case suspected 
to be suffering from smallpox (or Trinidad varioloid varicella). I 
found the patient, a young woman of decent coloured class, to be a 
case I had already been treating for syphilis within the last few 
months. 
But the interesting feature was that two little girls, aged about 
seven and eight years respectively, in the house had now an eruption 
°f papular vesicular syphilides. Not long ago I attended the 
daughter, aged nine years, of a coloured gentleman. She had been 
ailing and getting thin for some months, had had frequent and some¬ 
times severe rheumatoid pains, and a persistent rash of papules. She 
had been under treatment by another physician without improvement. 
' offered no diagnosis, but prescribed a hundred powders of grey 
powder and saccharated carbonate of iron. The rash rapidly cleared 
U P> and the general health became robust many weeks before I 
permitted the discontinuance of the powders. These were instances 
of non-venereal infection among clean, well-cared for children. 
About the same time that the first case above was seen, I was in 
consultation on a black peasant girl of sixteen years, suffering from a 
Profuse pustular rash, which was thought likely to give rise to a 
s mallpox scare. My colleagues both diagnosed yaws. I said syp 
and from my point of view we agreed. But one of the others, a man 
Wlth thlr ty years’ experience of the West Indies, objected-- ow 
COuld she get syphilis.” I have been treating that girl off and on o 
