English and French medical opinion on the immoral, despotic, and useless laws for the sanitary regulation of vice, known as the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1866-69.
- Date:
- [between 1880 and 1889?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: English and French medical opinion on the immoral, despotic, and useless laws for the sanitary regulation of vice, known as the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1866-69. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![one of the Avorst forms of vice. They also urgently prayed for prompt and total Repeal, and asked Parliament jiot ftgain to legislate in any form wh£).teyer for the samo object, nor to seek in any way to deal with the evils of prostitution,'unless by laws which are equal and just towards both sexes. FREDERICK W. JAGO, M.B., M.R.C.S., PLYMOUTH:— A blacker, more cowardly, unmanly Act of Parliament never disgraced the Statute B^ook. In proof th£),t ,these Acts are not so successful as has been stated, I ass^'rt on my experience of twenty-eight years practice in thia locality, that whatever the health of the services may be, there is not an iota of difference, so far as I can see, as to the extent of disease amongst civilians, compared with the period immediately preceding the passing of the Acts.—1877. ,, , ., ., ARMAND DESPRES, Professor Attaohed to the Parisian Facultx OP Medicine :— I was for six years surgeon to the Lour cine Hospital. I have closely examined these contagious maladies, and I have satisfied myself of the absolute inejjicacy of the measures adopted by the police to prevent their propagation. ... No citizen who has loved or defended justice and liberty should remain indifferent to a movement of public opinion (for abolition of the system) so manifestly righteous. Add my name and my writings to the ranks of those fighting for that generous and moral enterprise.—1877. DR. DIDAY, OP Lyons, speaking of the insecurity of the French regulation system, says:—''Every day I see some unfortunate people infected in the first-class houses (of tolerance), which, beside the official inspection, pay for the luxury of a doctor attached to the establishment. . , . Led by a very plausible reasoning, many people watch th* coming out of the dispensary of the woman who has just undergone inspection.* It is not unfrequent to observe cases of the most aggmvated kind of disease, caused by such contact, guaranteed, (as free from risk,) however, in some way, by the administrative authority,''^ DR. LADAME, of Loole :—Speaking of the regulations in France) this physician says :—After having raised vice to the rank of a legal profession, after having rendered compulsory the sanitary inspection, have they been able to diminish disease ? A thousand times, No ! On the contrary—and quite recently—at the third International Medical Congress, held in Vienna, in 1870, it has been loudly declared that these diseases have rather increased than diminished.! , —-* * Evidence waa given before the Royal Commission in 1871, to the effect thafe women are driven np to the examination-rooms in England by men, who wait tha reappearance of the women, and then go off with them in broad daylight. t At the International Medical Congress, held at Amsterdam in September, 1879, Dr. Kraus, of Vienna, read a paper in which he showed, by statistics, that these diseases were at the present time more prevalent than ever, notwithstanding all police and medical regulations. N.B.—Medical and pathological details are omitted as far as possible, and for obvious reasons, from this Leaflet. If the reader wishes to study the question further, other Pamphlets and Leaflets illustrative of the principles and working of the Acts, can be had on application to the Secretary of the National Association for the REPEAii of the Contagious Disease*- • Acts, 2, Westminster Chambers, London, S.W. [This Leaflet Is. 6d. per lOO, post free.] i/](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21450481_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
