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]
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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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    a diminution of no more than one man and a trifling fraction in a thousand. For the Navy, we turn to a table given on page 816, put in by Dr. Armstrong. This table does not give the number of men constantly sick for enthetic diseases, but “ the number of cases of venereal disease contracted by the crews of Her Majesty’s ships at home ports from 1856 to 1869 inclusive, with the ratios per thousand of force.” From it we learn that the number of cases of venereal disease, per thousand, in the navy at home ports, was 101-3 in 1866, and 101-9 in 1869. Consequently, instead of a diminution, there was an actual increase in the three years. The' results I have now laid before the society are most important, It is impossible to explain them away. They go far to substantiate the views of those who hold that laws, like the Contagious Diseases Acts of this country have never, and can never, permanently diminish the prevalence of venereal disease. Although the system has now been tried in the United Kingdom for several years, although it has been applied to aU the great naval stations, and to almost all the important stations of troops, and that at great expense of money, and greater violence to the constitutional rights of individuals than any law yet enacted in the United Kingdom, yet the impression made upon the aggregate amount of venereal disease has been nil in the navy,* and scarcely, if anything, more than nil in the army. Indeed, it is hard to say whether disease has not been actually increased by the system, inasmuch as, both in the army and navy, venereal affections were, for several years before the introduction of these laws, steadily and rapidly declining.! I am aware that in the tables which have been published, and which I have already enumerated, a vast mass of figures have been brought together, and arranged in some of them in such a way as to give the appearance of great sanitary benefits accruing from the Acts. This is particularly the case with the Eeturn issued in 1870, and which, for the sake of distinction, I will caU Mr. Mitford’s. In this return I • Mr. Acton objects that, though the total number of eases in the navy I may not have diminished, the relative proportion of syphilis to gonorrhoea I has been altered. On consulting the Navy Medical Reports for 1866-9, I find I that the number of men “ constantly sick ” of secondary syphilis was identical j in 1866 and in 1869, being 1-4 per 1000 in each year. The number of men “ con- stantly sick ” of gonorrhoea had more than doubled, being -9 per 1000 in 1866, and I 1-9 per 1000 in 1869. Whatever improvement had taken place was in what is 1 denominated in the returns “ primary syphilis,” respecting the importance to be j attached to which, see note on page 9 and page 11. ! tin the Army, from 422 cases, per 1000 men, in 1859, to 2585, per 1000, in 1866. In the navy, from 162-9 cases, per 1000 men, in 1862, to lOi-3, per 1000 n 1866.