A complete handbook of treatment : arranged as an alphabetical index of diseases to facilitate reference, and containing nearly one thousand formulae / by William Aitken.

William Aitken

Date:: 1882

Credit: A complete handbook of treatment : arranged as an alphabetical index of diseases to facilitate reference, and containing nearly one thousand formulae / by William Aitken. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$sary. [It seems useless to argue with the opponents of these Acts, who, while loudly denouncing them as immoral be- cause they render vice easier and safer to men, yet wish for the establishment by Government of voluntary lock hospi- tals and lock wards, which, if they proved equally efficient, must obviously be attended by the same result; who, while stating that the Acts render vice easy and safe, declare al- most in the same breath that they are hygienically a failure, and that wherever they have been in operation disease has increased instead of diminished : who, while charging them with all sorts of pernicious and degrading influences, yet deny them any credit for the collateral benefits which they have been shown to have produced ; who denounce them as unwarrantably interfering with individual liberty, on account of their compulsory clauses, and yet would not object to the compulsory detention of women in hospital until cured, pro- vided they were left to apply voluntarily for admission. How, they further ask, if the present system is an infringement of personal liberty, is that principle less infringed if the compul- sion is removed from one end of the procedure but retained at the other ? Surely if compulsion is unjustifiable, it should be abolished altogether ; but if it is to be retained at all, it should be retained in the form which has been found most effectual; and the evidence of those most competent to judge shows that the early detection of disease in public women by periodical examination is essential to the efficiency of the system. Even the Royal Commission were constrained to say, '^ We are satisfied from the evidence that the frequent examination of women is the most efficacious means of con- trolling the disease. It is not less important in the interest of the unfortunate women themselves, wdio obtain the im- mense advantage that their disease is discovered and treated at the earliest possible period, so that while they are pre-' vented communicating it to others, they are themselves saved from all the serious and painful consequences of neglect. {jBn'f. Med. Journ., July 22, 1876)]. (/.) The beneficial effect of these Acts on the civil population cannot be ignored. During the five years 1870-74 the annual death-rate from syphilis (including congenital syphilis) in the eleven districts or stations where the Acts were then in operation, was 21 per cent, lower than it was during the five years 1861-65 before the Acts came into operation in t866 ; whereas in the rest of England and Wales the death-rate from this disease was 20 per cent, higher in the second than in the earlier period.$