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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![they so dread being followed and watched into drug- gists shops, or a hospital, or a medical man's house, that they bear any amount of disease rather than be forced into the ranks of notorious prostitutes, and become thus permanent sources of infection, and never are cured. 19.414. Then you think if voluntary means were taken for the provision of means of cure of this disease, the probability is that the disease might be checked more completely than by the steps now taken for the check of disease ?—Very much more. I believe if you circulated leaflets among the women, desiring them to apply within certain limits to voluntary hospitals, they would do so most gladly. I do not think it is necessaiy to restrict them and keep them prisoners, or even confine them at all in a great majority of instances. Men are not confined Avhen treated for these diseases. Numbers of men suffering from them are out of doors, and walking and going about their daily avocations, and there is no more necessity to confine women than men. I am quite sure that if they had these inducements to come for- ward they would, and that you would get a large class whom you would get in no other way. Mr. Lane gave evidence to that effect. 19.415. (Sir W. James.) With regard to the case of the innocent wife which was brought before you, your answer will be, I think, that she Avill be very much more likely to be infected with the disease under a system where these Acts are prevalent, than under a system where perfect liberty of the subject is secured ?— Certainly, because you could not offer the husbaud a greater inducement to go astray than to tell him that public women Avere disinfected for his use. 19.416. {Dr. Bridges.') I gather one of your views is that these Acts tend to increase the disease by in- ducing men to fornicate more freely than they used ? —Unquestionably. 19.417. Under the impression that they can do so with impunity ?—Yes; of course there can be no greater inducement than that. If you make vice apparently safe, you must increase its prevalence, and I defy you to increase its prevalence without increasing disease. 19,4] 8. You say syphilis is a very serious disease?— No, I do not. In the vast majority of cases of true syphilis, I am speaking of constitutional syphilis, it is readily and permanently cured; but of persons who con- tract venereal disease, 75 per cent, are at the veiy least cases of gonorrhoea, and the remaining 25 are sores, but only a very small portion of these sores, 1 out 10, are truly syphilitic. 19.419. That is not my question, but do you con- sider true syphilis a serious disease ?—Well, it is a serious disease. It is a cause of relapsing illness in the original sufferer, and in some cases a source of detriment to the offspring; but taking all the cases together, nothing like so serious as has been repre- sented. 19.420. You would, however, think it so serious that it is a matter of very great importance that the public by voluntary means should take active measures for its cure ?—Yes ; any voluntary means I would support. 19.421. Such voluntary means, I suppose, would, if worth anything at all, tend to reduce the disease, would they not ?—Unquestionably, voluntary means. These women have nowhere to go to when diseased. 19.422. I understand that you would have every- where throughout the country places to which a woman could voluntarily resort and where she could be efficiently treated ?—Quite so ; I think you owe that to them. 19.423. Would not that, just in proportion as those means were efficient, tend to produce exactly that feeling of security, or increase that feeling of security of which you have been complaining ?—Not in the slightest degree, because when men know these women are not examined there is no security whatever. 19.424. Supposing a woman could give anything like probable proof that she liad recently come out of one of these hospitals, would not that be an induce- ment to men to consort with her ?—I do not think the fact of having recently come out of a venereal hos- pital Avould induce any man to have intercourse, I think quite the contrary ; but if recently examined and proclaimed free from disease and clean for safe usage it is a different thing-. 19.425. But the fact of coming out of a hospital would be a guarantee, would it not ?—No, I do not think it would. I do not think that is much tempta- tion. The temptation is the examination, and in France the brothels are crowded on examination days. 19.426. I understand you would, so far as it is possible by your own voluntary means, attack syphilis in every legitimate way ?—Yes, unquestionably. 19.427. And if possible eradicate it altogether?— Any form of this disease. I should be glad to com- bat every disease. The instincts of my profession would prompt me to do so. 19.428. And if eradicated this check on fornication which you lay stress upon would be removed, would it not ?—It never will be eradicated. 19.429. Have you at all paid attention to the few voluntary hospitals that have been set up ?— No, I have not paid much attention to them. I believe further the women do not know of them. I think that is the great mistake. 19.430. Have you been informed that it is found to be very difficult indeed to detain women in these hospitals ?—I am told so, but I do not believe it for a moment. ^,t the Lourcine Hospital in Paris, for instance, which is a voluntary hospital, the patients are not kept against their will, but they are always kept there until cured by persuasion. 19.431. It has been proved in evidence before us, by people who have had to do with TOluntary hospitals in this country, that women leave them whenever a ship comes into port, or a regiment into the town ? —I know that has been said, but Mr. Woolcombe, for instance, mentioned that I think in his evidence before the Paliamentary Commission. He said that when a ship, or a regiment came in, we used to have some trouble with the girls, but that was got over by giving them a little tea or amusement, or some- thing of that kind. And I think those voluntary means would induce women to come in and stay in I am quite sure of it. They are amenable to persuasion. 19.432. To turn to another point of your evidence with reference to the difference of opinion which exists amongst medical men as to the nature of syphilis, and as to the fact of syphilis existing, or not existing in a patient; you I'eferred to certain views recently put forward by Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, and I gather from you that you meant to refer to certain symptoms in the eyes and teetli ?—Yes ; inherent syphilis. 19.433. Yes, as shown by certain appearances in children in the eyes and in the teeth ?—Yes. 19.434. I understood you to say that a very eminent physician, Von Grcefe of Berlin, altogether differed from Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, as to that being a part of syphilis ?—Yes. 19.435. Was he speaking of symptoms in the eyes or teeth, or both ?—Altogether. 19.436. Of both those sets of symptoms ?—Yes. 19.437. Those are by no means the only symptoms of inherited syphilis, are they ?—Tlie most j^i'ominent symptoms. 19.438. But long before Mr. Hutchinson began to practise, inherited syphilis was a disease recognised in the profession, was it not ?—No ; all those symptoms were attributed to scrofula. It was Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson who attributed them to syphilis. 19.439. I am not asking you whether the symptoms of the eyes and teeth of which he wrote were re- cognised as syphilitic before his time, but whether inherited syphilis, quite apart from the symptoms in the eyes and teeth, was recognised as a fact in the 4 T 3 FORTY- THIRD DAY. Dr. ^C. B. Taylor.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21365945_0799.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
