A critical summary of the evidence before the Royal Commission upon the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1866-1869 / prepared for the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, by Douglas Kingsford.

  • Kingsford, D. P. W. (Douglas P. W.)
Date:
[1869]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A critical summary of the evidence before the Royal Commission upon the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1866-1869 / prepared for the National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, by Douglas Kingsford. 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.

    39/130 (page 9)
    3.752 i 13,805: ,808; 13,847-51 0 Com Evce 592-8 15,669-70 3242: 3754-5 694-701:7836; ,633-4: 12.640: !,945-8 : 16,922; 17.316 r.965-77; 18,045- (; 18,056; 18,504: U84-6: 18.362; 19,743; 20,294 171:1936-8:7505 1759: 10,740-4 i 1,632; 13 491-5; 1,799; 15.669-70; 18,879-80 3785 11,633; 12,649 3756 3760 8563-4 comes from increased self-respect, or rests on any other motive than that referred to. (2.)—That the health of the women has improved. This assertion is dealt with later in considering the effect of the Acts on disease. (3.)—That the women are improved morally, and that this is shown by the facts that their behaviour and language at the examining room are more decent, and that they are less addicted to drink. Only one witness, however, viz.. Dr. Barr, the visiting sur- geon at Aldershot, attributes these effects directly to the peri- odical examinations, and he explains the influence for good to be the moral advice with which he commonly prefaces his surgical examinations. But Dr. Barr will be admitted, by those who have read the evidence given by him before the Committee of the House of Commons, to be an enthusiast on this point. If the conduct of women at the waiting room has improved, this has arisen probably, not from any moral elevation, but from their experience having taught them the necessity of submission to the police. Another witness, a clergyman, thinks that the examination “teaches modesty” to prostitutes and causes “ a feeling of res- pectability to come over them which they have lost for years past.” On the other hand, a number of witnesses speak to the hardening and degrading effect on the women of the whole system of periodical examinations. A number of witnesses, it is true, deny this, but they do so on grounds which are obviously erroneous. They first assume that the mere surgical examination is the only or the main cause to which a demoralizing effect is attributed; and they then argue that this examination is but the same that many virtuous women are obliged to undergo, who are not said to be degraded thereby ; and that it is absurd to suppose that a common pros- titute, ready to sell her person to the fii’st comer, will be degraded further by a medical examination conducted with every regard to decency. As to the first argument, the examinations of a virtuous woman and of a prostitute are not identical. The purpose of the examination bears on its moral effect; the virtuous woman is examined in order to discover or treat her disease ; the pros- titute is examined because she is a prostitute, and in order to discover whether she is fit to practise prostitution, no disease.