The statistical results of the Contagious Diseases Acts : as deduced from all the Parliamentary papers which have been issued upon the subject, from the commencement of the Acts to the present time, shewing their total failure in a sanitary point of view : being a paper read before the Medical Society of London, February 19th, 1872 / by C. Bell Taylor.

  • Taylor, Charles Bell, 1829-1909.
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The statistical results of the Contagious Diseases Acts : as deduced from all the Parliamentary papers which have been issued upon the subject, from the commencement of the Acts to the present time, shewing their total failure in a sanitary point of view : being a paper read before the Medical Society of London, February 19th, 1872 / by C. Bell Taylor. 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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    STATISTICAL EESULTS OF THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACTS. In discussions upon the Contagious Diseases Acts, it is generally assumed that those measures have been successful in the professed object of their enactment—the extirpation or very great reduction of venereal affections. Those who are opposed to them base their opposition upon other grounds than their want of success in contend- ing with the physical evil. To most of the opponents of the Acts, their success, or non-success, in this respect, is a matter of trifling importance compared with the immensity of the moral and political interests involved in such legislation. It behoves us, however, as a medical society, to consider their medical aspect, as well as to give due weight to considerations of other kinds; and I propose, this evening, to enquhe into the question, whether the generally assumed impression is correct, that the Contagious Diseases Acts have (what- ever other arguments may be used for or against them) been successful in a sanitary point of view. The only trustworthy bases of such an enquiry are the returns made from time to time to Parliament respecting the health of the army and navy. When I say “trustworthy,” I do not mean that every word recorded in parliamentary papers is to be accepted without examination, on trust, but that these returns afford the only means we possess of investigating, -with any degree of probability of arriving at correct conclusions, the question before us. Vague impressions regarding the comparative frequency of venereal cases now and a few years back, and isolated instances of the state of hospitals in minor garrison towns once now and then, are no grounds on which to base conclusions respecting a question of such magnitude and importance, The Parliamentary Returns give us facts on a larger and wider scale, but even they do not take in so wide a scope as would be necessary to