Seven reasons for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases (Women's) Acts 1866-1869 / issued by the City of London Committee for obtaining the repeal of those Acts.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Seven reasons for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases (Women's) Acts 1866-1869 / issued by the City of London Committee for obtaining the repeal of those Acts. 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.

    15/18 (page 13)
    if it could be shown that disease was reduced by State-regulation of vice. What shall we say, then, when it has become evident (as must have been anticipated from the results of similar systems on the continent of Europe) that the encouragement given to the vice from which these diseases spring is aggravating and extending them, both in frequency and virulence, to the deterioration of the military and naval services, and the serious hygienic detriment of the civil popula- tions in the districts which are said to be “protected ” by the Acts.* The statements of the Royal Commissioners admitting hygienic failure, and recommending the discontinuance of the periodical examinations of women, have been already quoted. Since that date further returns have been laid before Parliament. Trustworthy statistics in regard to the Army have been rendered difficult to obtain, by reason of an order of the Horse Guards, made in 1873, causing men to conceal their diseased condition.! But it is un- doubtedly shown that a very decided and continuous improvement was taking place in the Army before the passing of the Acts, which was arrested when they were put in operation. Recent returns, moved for by Sir Harcourt Johnstone, show, as it regards the Navy, that in the five principal ports under the operation of the Acts, venereal disease has increased from 77 per 1000, when the Acts were first put in force, to 106J per 1000 during the last five years of their operation. The men were detained in hospital eighteen days, on the average, at the former period, while the average detention has steadily risen, year by themselves. Here lies the damning immorality of the Contagious Diseases Acts—not that they relieve the sufferer, hut that they resort to unjust, inequitable, and degrading means to abolish the penalties of sin before the sin is committed, and to make as clear a course as they can for the sinner to keep on in his sinful ivay. So did not the Saviour : He healed and He pardoned; but His injunction ever was, £ Gfo, and sin no more.’ ”— The Rev. Henry Bachelor. “ The nation sins, just as truly as the individual man, when, in reference to these or any other immoralities, it becomes an accessory before the fact.”—Rev. Principal Rainy, D.D. * “ We have abundant evidence to show that the Contagious Diseases Acts have not only failed in every known clime to effect any good whatever, but have really aggra- vated every evil, both physical and moral.”—Dr. O. B. Taylor, F.R.C.S. “ Medical jExaminer, September, 1878. t Vide Army Report for 1875, p. 14.