Remarks on the recent report of the Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases Act and its application to the voluntary hospital system / by John Morgan.

  • Morgan, John, 1829-1876.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the recent report of the Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases Act and its application to the voluntary hospital system / by John Morgan. 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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    It has been stated at the Commission (a) that women who pursue a life of prostitution “are healthier than honest women.” From such a statement I unequivocally dissent; nothing can be more impressive than to observe the waves of sufferers that rush on and perish in rapidly succeeding order. A few, no doubt, will endure for some time, from natural strength of constitution, or some fortuitous cir- cumstances, but they are the rari nautes on the great tem- pestuous ocean of vice. A young girl will become diseased ; in two or three years, she seems ten years older, in another three or four years syphilitic manifestations of the gum- matous order will probably appear, and rapid deterioration of health and strength too surely indicates the lethal in- fluence ; about every eight or ten years, a generation of these unfortunates will have passed away ; the testimony of nurses and others of experience connected with Lock Hospitals points to this rapid succession. It is useless to try and get rid of this question by allowing the continually increasing progress of the disease. If Government, Deucalion-like, throws these fragments of society behind its back, instead of getting rid of the evil, it will be still vigorously continued, and so rapidly re- produce, as to keep pace with the unusual and early mor- tality which the disease entails. In proof of the extent of disease, the Report states in “ figures which are plain and intelligible,” “that in 1866, before the periodical examina- tions had been introduced, and when the Act of 1864 only was in force, out of an aggregate number of 1,661 exami- nations made, 1,103 were of women found to be diseased.” With such a startling announcement proved by the Assistant-Commissioner of Police, it is sufficiently evident a disease of no ordinary magnitude and difficulty has to be dealt with, and it easily explains the numbers of males that suffer, as I have exemplified in the garrison of Dublin during this year. How fully the Commissioners were im- pressed by the evidence laid before them may be seen by the following expression of their opinion :— “We attach great importance to the maintenance of a system, which if it cannot altogether annul, may at least (a) Question No. 19,876.