The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, JULY 17, 1916. A NATIONAL DANGER.

Southland Times, Issue 17787, 17 July 1916, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, JULY 17, 1916. A NATIONAL DANGER.

One of the inevitable results of the war has been to bring into greater prominence the menace to the nation that is presented by the prevalence and far-reaching effects of venereal disease. War invariably results in a marked increase in this terrible scourge, and the outcome of investigations already made points to the probability of the question at last being dealt with in a bold and fearless manner. Governments in all countries have fought shy of the problem, social. workers have devoted their energies to less important matters, rarely has there been any public discussion on the subject, until now the ravages of venereal disease have spread and multiplieid and the necessity for the adoption of preventive measures has become imperative. In Britain a Commission was recently set up to investigate the results of sexual disease, and the statistics already published as the result of the enquiry were sufficiently staggering to send a wave of horror over the country. Apart from the large proportion of deaths directly and indirectly due to venereal disease, a-part from the number of its -victims in asylums and hospitals, there were nearly 140,000 • ante-natal deaths in one year due to the infection of one or other of the parents. In addition to this

loss to the nation, representing no less than one-sixth of the total births, how many children . must there have been who had not the good fortune to die before birth, but who came into the world hopelessly and incurably tainted? In the Commonwealth the Federal Committee on the Causes of Death and Mortality recently presented ?. report on the same subject. After careful and deliberate investigation this Committee, consisting of three leading medical men, gave it as their opinion that probably ten per cent, or more of the total population of Melbourne, and in fact of all large cities, was infected with syphilis. In the last

statistical year this disease caused the deaths of 3326 children alone in the Commonwealth. The Committee had no hesitation in stating that “syphilis 'is probably responsible for more disease, more ifacapacity, and more misery than any other single agent or cause." More than half the blind owe their affliction to the infection of their parents with either syphilis or gonorrhoea, and the asylums are filled with the victims of the scourge. In regard to gonorrhoea, generally treated as comparatively trifling and one of the natural experiences of young manhood, the Committee says: “It is high time that men recognised gonorrhoea as a plague quite as grave as syphilis, a plague even more unkind in its predominant incidence on the innocent. In New Zealand we have a promise from the W. Russell that steps will be taken to deal with this greatest of national perils, and it is to be hoped that the problem is to be tackled in earnest. What is wanted is an awakening of public interest in so vital a problem, and it would-be a good thing if societies and associations which have been formed to remedy other social abuses would devote their energy* and power to the greatest evil of all. Any Government which owes its existence to the vote of the people will hesitate to inaugurate the restrictions on personal liberty which alone will check the spread of the disease, unless there is a wide public demand for the adoption of effective measures. There, is not the slightest use in trifling with the fringe of the question. Men arid women suffering from the disease must be kept in restraint until they, are no longer a menace to others, and no marriage should be' allqwed which in all probability will lead to untold misery and suffering and a further spread of the trouble. The time was never more ripe for an active campaign, and it will be strange if those who feel a duty towards the. future, and who are anxious for the continuation of a clean, strong race fitted to’bear the burdens of the wider and greater Empire that will emerge from the war, do not succeed in waking the general public from what appears to be a state of ignorant indifference.