Prostitution : considered in its moral, social, and sanitary aspects, in London and other large cities and garrison towns: with proposals for the control and prevention of its attendant evils / by William Acton.

  • William Acton
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prostitution : considered in its moral, social, and sanitary aspects, in London and other large cities and garrison towns: with proposals for the control and prevention of its attendant evils / by William Acton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    zi commuiiicating disease, and that, as she has given herself up to an occupation dangerous to herself and others, she must, in her own interest and that of the community, submit to supervision. My pro- posals go to this extent, and no further,—viz., to make the evil that we cannot repress as little injurious as possible. I desire to protect both society at large, and the individual, from the permanent injury at present inflicted by a highly contagious and virulent disorder. I desire also to heal the sick prostitute, and to cleanse her moral nature. The State must moreover set its face against any one, man or woman, making a profit of another's prostitu- tion. I may here obsei-ve that it unhappily appears necessary to extend toleration to persons who keep accommodation-houses, otherwise hotels, coffee-houses, and other places of public resort will become debased. If, in spite of all the jorecaution that can be taken, the woman becomes a prostitute, our next object should be to attempt to ameliorate her condition, so as to enable her to pass through this stage of her existence with as little permanent injury to herself and as little mischief to society as possible. This is the more important because I prove that the great mass of prostitutes in this country are in course of time ab- sorbed into the so-called respectable classes, and I maintain that in proportion as they are assisted or neglected during their evil days will they assume the characters of wives and mothers with a gi-eater or less degree of unsoundness in their bodies and pollution in their minds. Notwithstanding the incalcul- able importance of working such reformation as may be possible in these unhappy women, no adequate effort in this direction has ever yet been made, and it is a lamentable fact that while the penitentiaries and asylums on the one hand effect but little good, and are at once expensive and useless, on the other the present hospital system is inadequate to the task of coping witli the diseases incidental to prostitution. To give access to and control over the woman whose ameliora- tion we desire to accomplish, it seems to me absolutely necessary that the Contagious Diseases Act should be extended to the civil population, for by means of its machinery alone can we discover and detain till cured the women afflicted with syphilitic diseases, and in no other way that has occurred to me can the supervision
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