A critical summary of the evidence before the Royal Commission upon the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1866-1869 / prepared for the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, by Douglas Kingsford.

  • Kingsford, D. P. W. (Douglas P. W.)
Date:
[1869]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A critical summary of the evidence before the Royal Commission upon the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1866-1869 / prepared for the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, by Douglas Kingsford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Append Append Append B 16,08i- troops in the United Kingdom in each year from 1864 to 1870.” |j The stations are divided into two classes, those not under and’l those under the Acts. The intention of this table is to show * that at the stations not under the Acts there was no, or a flue- j tuating, decline in venereal disease, while at the stations under ] the Acts there was a steady and considerable dechne. A correc- i tion should be made in this table in the ratio of venereal sores | at the stations under the Acts for 1865, when Devonport and ; j p Portsmouth are erroneously given as the only subjected stations. > Chatham and Sheerness were under the Acts fi-om June, as : Devonport was from April, in 1865. Including, therefore, Chatham and Sheerness, the average strength at the stations • 1 p 812 under the Acts in 1865 was 11,581 ; the admissions to hospital for venereal sores were 1,247 ; and the ratio per 1,000 was 107-6, instead of 120- as given in the table. With this important correction, the table shows that at the unsubjected stations the ratio per 1,000 of venereal sores was 108-6 in 1864, and 118-3 in 1870 ; of gonorrhoea, 112-5 in 1864, and 96-5 in 1870; at the subjected stations the ratio per 1,000 of venereal sores was ' 107*6 in 1865, and 54-6 in 1870 ; of gonorrhoea 140-5 in 1865, and 98-1 in 1870. This table, however, is worthless to give any real indication of the effect of the Acts, for the conditions were perpetually changing by the transfer from year to year of stations from the unsubjected into the subjected class; the average strength on which the ratio is taken dwindling accordingly at the unsubjected stations from 60,681 in 1864 to 17,852 in 1870 ; while, on the other hand, the subjected stations were undergoing a converse process, the average strength rising from 11,581 in 1865, to 99®^^ 41,580 in 1870. The next of Dr. BaKour’s returns is Table B, showing the ratio per 1000 of mean strength admitted into hospital for primary venereal sores and gonorrhoea at certain groups of sub- jected stations, commencing with the year before the Acts came into operation at the respective stations, and ending with 1870. The result of the table is that there was in each group of stations a progressive decrease of disease. Windsor, however, which is taken singly, was a remarkable exception, inasmuch as, after monthly examinations of prostitutes under the Acts were com- menced (in 1868), the ratio per 1,000 of venereal sores, that had been 57-7 in 1867, rose to 135-6, and in 1869 to 92-7 ,* the ratio of gonorrhoea rising in the same period from 55-9 to 81-2. Moreover, the apparently regular decrease in disease at Shorn-