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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    under 1 year, with their ratios per 1,000, which show the fluctua- tions from year to year more plainly than the ratios per million adopted for the whole population. Forty to fifty years ago the diagnosis of constitutional syphilis was by no means so well understood as it has since become; and during the period of transition the returns show traces of this in gradually increasing ratios per 1,000, without any intermediate falls. Thus in the second part of Table VI the deaths among children under 1 year give a ratio of i-i2 in 1860, then rise gradually to 1866, when it amounted to i57. In 1867 the ratio was 1 *62 per 1,000, and from this year until 1889 it fluctuated between that and i‘99, there having been no less than four occasions when it fell below 170, with intermediate waves of varying amounts. The mean ratio for the whole thirty years is i'6g per 1,000, but if the years up to 1866 inclusive be omitted, there remain 19,710,458 births, among which 34,989 deaths from syphilis occurred within the year, or 178 per 1,000, which repre- sents the mean state, when confined to its normal limits, more correctly. During these years the ratio was constantly fluctuating, having been under 178 on twelve occasions, and at or above it on eleven. The great wave which caused the Military and Naval returns to increase so rapidly, and which culminated in these in 1883 and 1884, is also well marked here, and the abrupt fall to 1888 and 1889 equally so. Table VII gives the distribution of the deaths from syphilis among the civil population of the different divisions of the Registrar-General, which have been arranged so as to throw the whole country into five continuous groups, the metropolis forming one of them, the period being for the six quinquenniads from 1860 to 1889. The first of these quinquenniads, being a transition one, may be passed over here as affording no secure basis for generalisa- tion. The second, 1865-69, embraces the first introduction of the Contagious Diseases Acts, and with those that follow enables the influence of these Acts on the frequency of deaths from syphilis to be traced. The deaths per million living in each of these groups in the respective quinquenniads were as under:— Periods. England and Wales. Districts. I. II and V. III, IV, and VI. VII and XI. VIII, IX, and X. 1865-69 80 144 68 67 44 85 70-74 80 127 62 72 49 88 75-79 85 128 60 77 58 97 ’80-84 84 127 55 75 56 96 ’85-89 73 112 55 61 51 83