Enthetic diseases (the young man's peril) / by Robert Reid Rentoul.

  • Rentoul, Robert, 1939-
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Enthetic diseases (the young man's peril) / by Robert Reid Rentoul. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHAPTER III. THE EFFECTS OF VENEREAL DISEASES UPON WOMEN AND INFANTS. But it is not only among the men that the suffering and loss takes place. Wives and children suffer, and other innocent persons. According to the annual report of the Registrar-General for England and Wales, and for the ten years i8g6 to 1905, the number who died from syphilis alone was— Males, 9,833; Females, 6,084. As showing the terrible influence of those dreadful diseases upon infants, it is to be noted that of the above, 7,075 males and 5,996 females were under five years of age. No wonder Dr. Fournier has said: “Syphilis is the essential murderer of those young in years; it is the veritable tomb •of infants; it is the cause of their death before birth, at the moment of birth, after birth, within the first week of birth, or it may await the first year. Syphilis, alcoholism, and tuberculosis constitute the triad of the contemporaries.” If, again, we wish for another illustration of the action of syphilis upon young children, we can study this from the registered deaths due to premature birth—that is, infants born before full time. In the ten years 1896 to 1905, 104,297 male infants and 81,297 female infants died because they had been born before their time. Had 104,297 boys been saved we should not hear so much about the difficulty of obtaining British sailors for British ships. But because a large number of us are so hypocritical,—specialists in