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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    and conducted their case before the Parliamentary Committee which sat from 1879 to 1881 to investigate their working. Before proceeding to the proper subject of this paper, it is necessary to indicate the forms of disease which came under the operation of the Acts; the different manner in which separate bodies of men, at the same place and at the same time, were affected by these diseases ; and a very remarkable fluctuation, of an epidemic nature, extending over several years in succession, which is quite as great as that of measles, and the area it occupies very extensive. Primary venereal affections present themselves as sores, or increased discharges of a more or less inflammatory nature from the urinary passages. The sores are frequently followed by a con- stitutional affection called secondary syphilis, and, of late years, a farther transition of the constitutional complaint has been recog- nised which is named tertiary syphilis. The discharges from the urinary passages are followed occasionally by rheumatism, and more frequently by local inflammation, which may cause much trouble, but they do not affect the system in the injurious manner that syphilis does. Primary venereal sores are far most commonly met with on the genital organs, but they may be produced on any part of the body, either intentionally by inoculation from an existing sore, or take place unintentionally by a portion of the surface dis- charge from a sore in one person coming into contact with a raw surface in another. The primary sores have long been known to be of two descriptions, viz., those that are followed by the con- stitutional disease, and hence designated “ infective sores,” and those which do not lead to this, and for this reason called “ non- “ infecting,” or “simple sores.” It was found at an early period that sores which left much thickening and induration around their site, and hence named hard sores, were frequently followed by constitutional symptoms, and this idea gave rise to the opinion that hard sores were the true infecting sores, and those which healed without induration were devoid of such troublesome conse- quences. Mr. Lane, of the London Lock Hospital, and Mr. Macnamara, the medical officer of tbe Dublin Lock Hospital, stated in their evidence before the Committee that, in their experience, the constitutional affection did not follow the in- durated sore exclusively, and that in most cases it was impossible to say whether any given sore would eventuate in the constitu- tional affection, but neither of them was able to give a numerical statement of the relative frequency in which each of these sources occurred. Regimental medical officers, who formerly remained in the same corps for many years, and had the same men under