The operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts among the troops in the United Kingdom, and men of the Royal Navy on the home station : from their introduction in 1864 to their ultimate repeal in 1884 / by Robert Lawson.

  • Lawson, Robert.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The operation of the Contagious Diseases Acts among the troops in the United Kingdom, and men of the Royal Navy on the home station : from their introduction in 1864 to their ultimate repeal in 1884 / by Robert Lawson. 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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    increased 32 per 1,000, against a fall of 2 at all the nnsubjected stations, and a moderate rise of 9 at the fourteen unsubjected ; and in 1884 there was a further rise of 28 at the subjected stations, against a fall of 8 at the whole of the unsubjected stations, and of 28 at the fourteen unsubjected. This extraordinary rise in the ratio of primary sores at the subjected stations, placed them in 1884 at 138 per 1,000, midway between those at the two sets of unsubjected stations, and 13 above the general mean for all the troops on the home station last year. It differed little from what they were in 1860, and following as it immediately did on the removal of the last restriction on its propagation, there can be no doubt of its cause. The returns for the army do not give the distribution of the troops into subjected and unsuhjected stations after 1884. The strength and numbers which came under treatment for the same forms of disease from 1885, on the home stations, have been consolidated, and are placed in the diagram in continuation of the curve for the subjected stations; they indicate a reasonably rapid diminution in the incidence of the disease in the country, which among the troops had fallen to 83• 5 per 1,000; the details are given in Table IIIb at the end; that this reduced incidence of the disease on the country is real, is manifest from the Registrar- General’s Returns, which show a striking diminution of deaths from syphilis among the civil population, at the same time, three- fourths of which is among children under one year of age. The general course of the contagious diseases at the three classes of stations specified above, has been detailed in Table III, and the curve for each has been represented in the diagram, but now a more exact estimate may he made by using the sums for the periods into which the table is divided, each of which embraces the operation of one or more of the factors specified above as having influenced their frequency. The first period, 1860-63, the four years before the Act of 1864 was introduced, shows the prevalence of the three forms of disease in each class of stations, when subject to the influences in operation at these during the period. During the second period, 1864-69, the Acts were being gradually introduced, as hospital accommodation and other necessary arrangements were completed at the several stations comprised in the group, and hence was altogether a transitional one, showing nothing further than that the restrictive measures adopted had already produced a marked reduction of disease, and may there- fore be passed over. The third period, 1870-73, the Acts were in force for the whole time, under their fullest development, at all the fourteen stations which came under them, with one or two exceptions of single stations in January and February, 1870, and the results show their full influence in limiting the extension of