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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    materially mitigate, a pestilence, which is not like other contagions, of occasional occurrence, but one of perennial growth. The offenders who bring this affliction upon themselves by their own vicious indulgence, may have no claim to the compassionate care of the State; but the numerous innocent persons who suffer from the disease aie surely entitled to consideration. We venture to express our hope, therefore, that while due consideration is paid to the sentiments of the people in regard to prostitution, no misapprehension as to the real moral bearings of the ques- tion, and no want of courage, will be suffered to prevent the application of such remedy as may be practicable to this great evil. The firmness of a former Parliament with- stood the storm of clamour with which the discovery of vaccination was assailed by the ignorance and prejudice of the day, and relieved posterity from a scourge which was the terror of earlier generations ; and we would fain hope that an attempt to stay the progress of a plague scarcely less formidable in its ravages is not to be hastily abandoned.” Indeed, such an enunciation could hardly be avoided in the face of the conclusive evidences derived from the statistics of the Army and Navy Departments, where the good effects produced by the application of “such remedy as may be practicable to the great evil,” are plainly shown by the tables put in by Dr. Balfour, the Inspector-General of the Army Medical Department. It may be premised that Dr. Balfour, when speaking of syphilis, confines his state- ment to primary venereal sores. In Devonport and Ply- mouth, where from the first the system has been most carefully and vigorously administered, the state of syphilitic disease in 1864, before legislation, showed 274 cases out of 2,481 strength ; in 1865, before the Act of 1864 had made any impression, the numbers rose to 342; in 1866, when only women informed against or strongly suspected of being affected with contagious disease, were brought up for examination, the number fell to 209. In 1867, when the same system obtained, a further reduction from 209 to 185 was recorded. In 1868, under a monthly examination for the latter half of the year, the figures were reduced from 185 to 159. In 1869, when the fortnightly examination was first instituted, the figures increased from 159 to 162, i and in the following year were reduced to 85, or nearly one