Report of Royal Commission upon the Administration and Operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases Acts
- Date:
- 1871
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of Royal Commission upon the Administration and Operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![partially in operation at Chatham and Sheerness. Legal difficulties had. prevented its being- put in force at Portsmouth, and at Devonport and Plymouth nothing had been done heyond a preparatory enumeration of the brothels and public women. In 1865, the cases of syphilis on the home stations were 108-7 per 1,000. In 1866, still under the partial though more extended operation of the Act of 1864, the ratio per 1,000 had fallen to 76'3. Passing on to 1869, when the ])eriodical examination had been nearly completed in the seaports, the ratio was 59-5. The return of cases of gonorrhoea is remarkable. In 1865, they were 34-4 per 1,000; in 186G, they were 25; in 1869, they were 42-4 per 1,000, the highest number attained during the 14 years to which the return refers. Dr. Armstrong explained that these figures were not to be taken as a fair criterion of the working of periodical examinations, on account of the constant fluctuation of the crews in the receiving ships. But though no definite conclusion can be drawn from statistics subject to so much disturbance, they would seem to show that since the introduction of the system which commenced in 1864 the more serious form of the disease has diminished, while the other form has increased. 32. We turn now to the tables i)utin by Dr. Balfour, the Inspector-Genera! of the Army Medical Department. It may be premised that Dr. Balfour, when speaking of syphilis, confines his statement to primary venereal sores. In Devonport and Plymouth, where from the first the system has been most carefully and vigorously administered, the state of syphilitic disease in 1864, before legislation, showed 274 cases out of 2,481 strength ; in 1865, before the Act of 1864 had made any impression, tiie i.umbers rose to 342; in 1866, when only women informed against or f-trongly suspected of being affected wnth contagious disease were brought up for examination, the number fell to 209. In 1867 when the same system obtained, a further reduction from 209 to 185 was recorded. In 1868, under a monthly examination for the latter half of the year, the figures were reduced from 185 to 159- In 1869? when the fortnightly examination was first instituted, the figures increased from 159 to l62, and in the following year were reduced to 85, or nearly one half. The strength of the garrison was nearly the same throughout these years. At Portsmouth, where, owing to the deficiency of hospital accommodation, the original Act was very partially and irregularly introduced, the decrease from 1864 to the end of 1868, when the periodical examination was commenced, was from 538 to 422; in 1869 and 1870, under an examination every three and two weeks, the numbers (the strength being throughout the same) were respectively 289 and 232. At Chatham and Sheerness, under a system of quarterly examinations, syphilis was reduced from 334 in 1864 to 192 in 1870. In Woolwich no impression appears to iiave been made on the disease until 1868, when the cases fell from 432 in the preceding _year to 233, the monthly examinations having commenced in August of that year, previously to which period the Acts had been very laxly administered. At Aldershot, where the practice of bringing up those women only who were informed against or suspected continued till March 1868, the pcr-centage of men affected with venereal sores in 1865 was about 10; in 1866 and 1867, about 8; in 1868 no material variation; in 1869, during which the fortnightly examinations were in force, the per-centage had fallen in round numbers to 6, rising again towards 7 in 1870. Taking the aggregate of 28 stations of troops in the United Kingdom, at which the average strength amounted to 500 and up.wards, the ratio per 1,000 of primary venereal sores in 1865 was 120; in 1867, before the fortnightly examinations had commenced, except for a few months at Chatham, the disease had fallen to 86; it continued to decrease from 86 to 72 and 60, until it fell to 54 in 1870, when the fortnightly examinations were generally established throughout the subjected districts. The returns of gonorrhoea are fluctuating, and the figures are nearly the same for the five principal stations in the 3'ear before the Act of 1866, and in the last year of its operation. Dr. Balfour was of opinion that so far as gonorrhoea w^as concerned, the Acts had been a failure. The other tables put in by Dr. Armstrong and Dr. Balfour exhibit similar results 16,268. in a compendious form. 33. Dr. Balfour insisted that very erroneous inferences are liable to be drawn from the amount of disease existing among the small number of men stationed in any one locality, and prepared a table comparing the condition of the total number of soldiers in the pro- tected with that of the total number in the unprotected districts. The result of this table is, that in the first or protected group the number of men per 1,000 admitted into hospital for piimary venereal sores has steadily and continuously diminished during the seven years 1864-70; the successive numbers per 1,000 being 120, 90*5, 8635 72-1, 60*9, 545. In the second, or unprotected group, no such diminution presents itself, the corresponding numbers per 1,000 being 108-6, 99*9, 90-9, 108-0, 106-7, 111-9, Table A. 113-3. 34. Before quitting the naval and mihtary statistics, we refer to a partial but very 26937. R](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21365945_0015.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
