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.

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    INTRODUCTION. In this work an attempt is made to marshal the voluminous evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases Acts, with the view of exhibiting the practical operation of the Acts and of estimating their moral and physical results. Various points are treated in the order that naturally suggested itself to the writer. The first step that the police, employed under the Acts, have to take is to discover the “ common prostitutes ” in the various districts to which the Acts apply. How they perform this task is considered in Chapter I. The next thing to be done is to subject common prostitutes to the operation of the Acts, either by voluntary submission or by magistrate’s order. These processes are discussed in Chapter H. The consecruences of subjection to the Acts, viz., periodical examina- tions and detention in hospital if diseased, are,considered in Chapters III. and IV., the latter of which also contains a comparison of the advantages of compulsory and voluntary hospitals. In Chapters V. and VI. the effect of the Acts on venereal disease, and their alleged influence in improving public morality and decency, are respectively the subjects of discussion. Chapter VII. treats the question of abuses under the Acts. It will be seen that the evidence before the Commission is aimost exclusively referred to, but the writer has occasionally, where it seemed to him necessary or convenient, added references to the evidence taken by the Committee on Venereal Disease and by the Parliamentary Committees on these Acts.