THE "SCARLET SCOURGE.”

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 420, 10 June 1922, Page 6

THE "SCARLET SCOURGE.”

INTERVIEW WITH LADY STOUT,

OPPOSED TO NOTIFICATION,

“ Iho blind folly «f those earnest-minded men who ate at present advocating compulsory notification—carrying with it compulsory examination as a sine qua non — of venereal disease in New Zealand, is little short of appalling,” remarked Lady Stout, who is at present on a visit to Palmerston North, in the course of an interview with a “Standard” representative yesterday. Traversing the allegations made to the Prime Minister earlier in the w-uek. regarding the alarming increase of the “scarlet scourge” in the Dominion, •she stated that there was every reason to believe that the position had been exaggerated, and passing on she announced herself as uncompromisingly opposed to any lonn of compulsory notification—a gross travesty on womanhood and a striking indictment of man’s inhumanity to woman. All the world’s leading statesmen, moralists ami medical authorities regarded the measures advocated by Dr. Fenwick as being retrograde in principle and hopelessly futile in effect. As to the “Standard’s” endorsement, of Dr. Fenwick's suggestions, Lady Stout wont on to state that it was admitted that it was by no means a pleasant task to write or talk about the subject. If those were the feelings of an editor of a paper, what must the feelings be of some young girl or boy who, having made a mistake in life, would be compelled to submit to the indignity of notification and the degradation of examination, as a prelude to he branded as suffering from a loathsome disease?. 'lhe answer was obvious. Dr. Fenwick had stated in his interview with the Prime MinistoiMhat 2000 new cases had occurred in Now Zealand during the year: he must be seeing “ rod ” in all manner of diseases which doubtless actually had no connection with the scourge. He had, to all appearances, fallen into the same error made by Lord Knulsford, president of the London Hospital, when the latter stated that in one year there had been 23.000 new cases in London. He (Lord Knulsford) was criticised by Dr. J. Ernest Lane, venereal surgeon to the London Hospital who, writing in the Lancet of April 23rd last, pointed out that the great majority of those cases were simply re-treatments, and on close

analysis the 23,000 new cases dwindled down to 1307; and a number of these were doubtful. Then again. Dr. Lane in the course of the same article, in referring to the famous Look Hospital, which for many years had specialised in the treatment of venerea! diseases, remarked; "There bus been a falling off in the lirst quarter of this year of 569 new patients and 994 attendances, in comparison with the corresponding quarter in 1920.” Hearing ttnoti die same paint it was worthy of note that. Dr. Wilfred Aining, a famous surgeon of lannis, entertained the belief that the

medical profession should refuse to accept any figures or statistics unsupported by weighty clinical and pathological evidence, and urged their duty of not misleading the public into the erroneous belief as lo the prevalence of congenital disease, which was largely a myth, lie held that the amount of mortality or ill-health in infants due to congenital disease was exaggerated. “The great plea in favour .of compulsory notification was the necessity for the protection of the children." commented Lady Stout, “yet statistics and one’s own observations point conclusively to the fact that children were not suffering as before." “Dr. Jane Walker, a Harley street surgeon and president of the British Women’s Medica] Federation, with whom,” continued Lady Stout, “I had an interview on November 2nd last, the day before ! left London, said that it was absolute nonsense to say that venereal disease was increasing. It was, she averred, steadily decreasing, as one could readily see from the appearance-! of the children in (he hospitals, and other children one came across." Another point made by Lady Stout was that one saw no signs of congenital disease in the children of the soldiers who fought in the Great W ar, and, who on the whole were as healthy and line looking children as one could wish to see. Statistics showed that the number of v.d. cases per thousand of the British troops had decreased by several hundred per cent, since 1886; and" further, to revert to war’s aftermath, it was significant that between 1918 and 1920, while the ratio per thousand of admissions lo mili- . tary hospitals for venereal diseases hail increased in the United Kingdom by only 6 per cent, the percentage in the case of the British Army ut France bad risen from 67 to 168 per cent. Ihe p'oinl. a Dot it these figures was Unit France was the country where inspection, notification and disinfection were compulsory and the houses registered—so much for compulsion and its alleged success in comhatiiie the sconrtm.

Curiously enough, added Lady Stout, the sternest indictment of compulsory notification came from tile very countries where it was in operation. New Mouth Wales adopted the compulsory notification Act in force in Western Australia only to withdraw it after three months, because, while nominally it applied to both sexes, in effect it was found to apply to women—and

women alone. In Western .Australia, where there was a great outcry against the Act, the Minister of Health had staled that he did not care if 60 innocent women wore arrested and examined so long as this saved one child from disease. Would the people of New Zealand tolerate a law which was capable of.such gross injustice as was condoned by this Minister! Ii was on record that of six women compulsorily arrested and examined in Western Australia five were found to be absolutely free from the disease. In Western Australia, as in America, everything pointed to the fact that the compulsory notiiic.ition got at the women and not the men, who systematically avoided their obligations under the Act. Compulsion was in force in some 36 States in America, where 7600 women “suspects” had already been examined and only three men. Two of the latter were coloured, while the colour of the third was not given. So much for compulsion, which did not gather within it a net those individuals—the men—who carried the disease into their own homes; for no woman would be guilty of such a practice. According to Dr. Katherine Buslmell, an eminent American authority on moral and social hygiene, numerous eases were on record in her country, where innocent women had been arrested on mere suspicion and forced to undergo examination, thus reducing them by a single stroke to the same abject level as the most debased of women. The compulsory examination of women for venereal infection could not bo maintained except by denying them certain well-defined constitutional rights, as well as denying them common decency. This opinion had been endorsed by the Supreme Court in lowa, which granted a writ of habeas corpus to a man who refused to be examined. A more recent decision of the Appellate Court in California was in favour of a woman who was arrested and held for examination. She refused examination and denied infection or immorality.

Continuing, Lady Stout said that both the British Medical Association and the Women's Federation of the British Medical Association were opposed to compulsory examination, us were also many other eihinent authorities. The introduction of the Act into New Zealand would, according lo the B.M.A. (England), _do uwav •with the benefit of voluntary clinics, which were accomplishing excellent work, prevent early treatment of the disease—this was most essential —and it would “drive (he scourge underground and to the quacks.’ It was all very well in theory, but in actual practice it had proved a failure. It involved secret and anonymous denunciation of venereal disease, and this was a great weapon in the hands of the seducer anil the blackmailer. Again, any person actuated by spite could name perfectly innocent men and women as infected, and they would have to undergo the degradation of inspection. For this there would he no redress against the Health Department —this was the experience in America. Persons known to be infected would be followed up from town to town, not by the doctors, but by the police. As a last word, it was a gross t ravesty on women’s rights to propose such a measure when there were in New Zealand no women jurors, no women magistrates snd no women police.