The Geneva Congress on public morality : September 17th to 22nd, 1977.

  • International Abolitionist Federation 1877 : Geneva, Switzerland)
Date:
[1877?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Geneva Congress on public morality : September 17th to 22nd, 1977. 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.

    15/34 (page 13)
    From the Inaugural Address of M. SAUTTER DE BLONAY, In the Sections of Morality and Reformatory Work. First of all, we maintain our right to regard the pre- sent question from the standpoint of morality. Even this right is at times contested. Many doctors maintain that this study is exclusively medical, and only to be un- dertaken by the hygienist. Far from it. We desire that the number of hygienists, who make this question of social immorality the subject of impartial study, should be large. We invite them to do so. We invite them even to extend the sphere of their observation, and no longer to occupy themselves exclusively with contagious diseases. We beg them to study the influence and effect of precocious and ex- cessive debauchery, facilitated by Houses of Toleration, upon the health of men, and especially of young men. Instances are not rare of young men who have been intellectually and physically killed by excesses greater than their strength could support, and to which they were led by the provocation to debauchery offered by Houses of Toleration. * * * That which alarms us more than the exclusive assumptions of hygiene is the slow but persistent intrusion of utilitarianism into social questions. Utilitarianism has traded upon the goods of that proscribed sentiment of morality which has been banished from life. Well, it is this proscribed sentiment of morality banished from our life by the scepticism of our age which we seek to restore to its rightful place, and to make the criterion of our actions. The magistrates who have thought it right to encourage the increase of Houses of Toleration, tell us that they have done this, not merely for the sake' of public health but also of morality. Their purpose was to impede alike clandestine prostitution and other forms of sexual immorality. They have entirely failed. The statistical researches undertaken by our society seem to us clearly to demonstrate— ist. That wherever legalised prostitution has been introduced, clandestine prostitution has spread to a far greater extent. 2nd. That seduction and illegitimate births are more frequent where Houses of Toleration exist.