TWO ROYAL COMMISSIONS UPON SOCIAL DISEASES.

White Ribbon, Volume 22, Issue 253, 18 July 1916, Page 1

TWO ROYAL COMMISSIONS UPON SOCIAL DISEASES.

Alarmed at the spread of secret diseases. the British Government set up a Commiss on to enquire into their extent and means for preventing them. New South Wales also has a Royal Commission sitting on this subject. Medical science has made tfre.it advance in diagnosing these diseases, and they now tell us that all cases of general paralysis of the insane, many cases of locomotor ataxia, aneurism, disease of the arteries, are late effects of venereal disease. The number of soldiers rendered incapable of serving their country by these diseases has also directed special attention to them. “Cairo," says a nurse, “is absolutely unspeakable." And yet we are told that Cairo has 20, <>oo registered prostitutes (some say 7o,(xk»). In spite of their boasted registration, venereal disease is rampant in Cairo. We have summarised the evidence given at these Commissions for the benefit of those who may not see these Reports. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations are taken from the reports of one or other of these Commissions. We commend this evidence to the careful attention of all While Ribboners. I.—Regulation. Regulation of vice has been in force on the Continent for about a century. It was first introduced by Napoleon, and was an attempt to secure that soldiers breaking the moral law should escape the physical consequen-

ces. Sometimes the house of illfame was licensed, and in some cases the women were licensed. They had to lie examined at regular intervals, mostly fortnightly, and if free from disease were given a certificate to pursue their awful trade. This system has now been pronounced useless as a prevention to the spread of venereal disease. The International Congress held in London in 1013 almost unanimously condemned regulation. Such authorities as Dr. lilac htro, of Berlin, and l)r. Finger, of Vienna (who are leading men in connection with venereal disease) and many other authorities condemn regulation. l)r Baton, Director-General of Public Health, and for iS years Governrnent Medical Officer of Sydney, said he would not recommend regulation. It was a fact that the majority of npdical authorities on this subject were of opinion that registration and examination were of little* value. A grave objection was that it gave a false sense* of see urity. A most competent man might examine a woman, and pronounce her free from disease, and yet a couple of nights afterwards she might transmit syphilis to a man. Dr 1.. P. Johnston, lion. Physician at St. Vincent’s and at Sydney Hospital said that whe n in Europe he had enquired into systems of registration, and found them generally recognised as failures. He saw an examination carried out, and it was of no value in chronic cases, and very little value in acute cases. He could not recommend any system of regulation.

Dr E. C. Uorlett, Secretary for N.S.W. of a committee appointed by Australian Medical Congress to investigate* syphilis, said the committee had considered tin question of regulation, and turned it down at once, almost unanimously. It was a fact that the vast majority of medical experts pronounce various forms of regulation to be* worthless. Dr. E. H. Molesworih, Senior Physician for Department of Skin Diseases at Prince* Alfred and St. Vincent's Hospitals, said, in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna he inquired into the system of regulation. Medical men said it was not a success as far as their experience went. He used to be in favour of regulation, but was not so sure about it now. Dr (1. E. Bennie, Senior Physician at Prince* Alfred Hospital said he could only judge from experience of other countries that regulation had not been a success, it had not been successful in the prevention of these diseases. Mitchell, Inspector-General of the Police Force in Sydney, said he had no sympathy with the* idea of registering houses of ill-fame. It would not lessen prostitution nor the* danger of contagion to the general public, and it would publicly proclaim the fact where illicit intercourse might be obtained. Dr Arthur, M.L.A., Chairman of Sydnev Royal Commission, in an address delivered to the officers of the* Australasian Force, said: “The modern trend of expert opinion is to the effect that the svstem known as

regulation has failed in what it was intended to do. This view has become more and more prominent at the last two International Conferences on the Suppression of Venereal I) sease, and in the latest book on the subject, by Abraham Flexner, who was sent by the American Bureau of Social Scienn to investigate the problem in Europe, the writer after a most exhaustive investigation, comes to the conclusion that as carried out in France and Germany, regulation is of little or no value as a hygienic measure. It is recognised that to be effectual every city would require a large staff of medical experts, microsc opists, bacteriologists, and pathologists, and that daily examination of the women and their clients would be necessary. It is admitted that even then certain cases would escape medical scrutiny, and clandestine prostitution, an even greater danger, would remain untouched.

Sir Charles Kinnaird Mackeller, M. 1)., for 43 years in practice in Sydney, said, “I am entirely against ihe C.U. Acts for this reason: wherever the C.D. Acts are in force we know that venereal diseases are rife, which emphasises the fact that these* Acts are failures. There is no doubt that they do fail in any large* city, and that the only places where they have been successful are small garrison towns or military cantonments. They have been a success m India, but you cannot drum-major the whole of the people of a country in such a manner.”

And why have these Acts been a success in India? Because when a regiment went to a place word was sent ahead that so many women were wanted. These women were kept in cantonments practically as slaves to satisfy the lusts of the* soldiers. When diseased they were put away. Do New Zealand women wish to see white slaves established in our midst? The (’.I). Acts only dealt with women, but now there is a suggestion to apply these Acts equally to men and women. If men knew that every time they visited a registered house or woman, they would he detained and examined, they would not go there*, and doctors and police* tell us that the re are many clandestine prostitutes they could go to.

Doctors who favoured regulation took up this position that prostitution always had existed and always would

exist, and that Government should provide clean women for soldiers and civilians. This position no self-re-specting woman can agree with. Once admit that these slaves of man’s lust must be supplied, and then you justify .ill the tricks and wiles of the Wh.te Slave Dealer to supply them. For every land emphasises the* fact that .-sufficient women will not voluntaril> take up this life. NOTIFICATION. Many people think that every rase of venereal disease should be* notified the same as any other contagious disease. But the objections to this course have been set forth by many witnesses. Practically all the medical evidence given before the British Royal Commission was against notification, and the Commission recommended: “No system of notification should be put in force at the present time.” Dr E. C. Corlett said that the N.SAV. Committee set up by the Australian Medical Congress had considered notification, and there was a preponderance of opinion against it. I think that practically everybody thought that even if tried it would not succeed. Those who thought it might be tried were not men engaged in private practice. His own opinion was that notification was a beautiful dream. He was certain it would prevent patients submitting ihemselves for treatment, and he w.ts sure if legislation were parsed making notification compulsory the Act would be treated as so much waste paper. He himself would treat it as such. He was certain that the* majority of medical men we re* not in favour of notification. Dr L. I*. Johnston said notification was the worst thing that could possibly take place. Some doctors arc* unscrupulous, and it would become known that they would not notify. They would get many patients, and they might not be* the* best men to treat them. Dr J. Foreman, for 32 years at Prince Alfred Hospital, thought compulsory notification would not do any good, and did not think it practicable. It would have the* effect of breaking up the homes of married people. Sir T. A. Stuart, Professor of Physiology at Sydney Cniversitv, and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and Chairman of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, said logically notification ought to be*

good, but life was not logical, and persons would not notify, they would conceal cases. When there is no notification, and a man gets gonorrhoea, he goes to his doctor; but if he knew the doctor would notify his case hr would not go to him, he* would g<> to a quack, and no legal enactment would ever repress quarks. ALCOHOL AND VENEREAL DISEASES. The British Royal Commission Report says: “Our evidence tends to show that the communication of disease is frequently due to indulgence* in intoxicants, and there is no doubt that the growth of temperance among the* population would help to bring about an amelioration of the very serious conditions which our enquiry has revealed.”

Dr Johnston said that in the* army in England the daily average of men off duty in hospital from syphilis has fallen from 17 per 1000 to .2 per ickk>, and this was attributable to the* temperance movement. Asked if he did not think it was due to increased care in the* matter of hygiene, he replied: “More to the men becoming more temperate. The* consumption of alcohol and the infection from syphilis go hand in glove. Patients of his, mostly married men, have a night out with their friends, indulge* too mue h ill liquor and bee omc infected. Dr C. E. Corlette said the* Committee appointed by Australian Medical Congress recommended that, one means of reducing syphilis was by reducing the* amount of drink taken. Personally he had charge of outpatient department at Sydney Hospital, and saw many < .im*s of venereal disease. lie asked ihe men how they came by the* disease, and the reply mostly was: “Well, I had a drop of drink in me* or the woman would not have got me.” The effect of alcohol on a man’s brain was to make him fall into the hands of a woman. Alcohol also aggravates the* manifestation of the disease.

Dr Worral said: “There is a very close connection between drink and venereal disease. When a man is intoxicated his caution i> dissipated, his controlling centres are in abeyance. Men will make a young girl drink. The back parlours of hotels and wine shops are sinks of iniquity. I know many striking cases of girls seduced in these back parlours,”

Sir T. A. Stuart, Dean of Medical Faculty at Sydney University, believed there was a (lose connection between alcohol and venereal disease. Alcohol stimulated the sexual appetite and lessened self-control. Limiting the hours for the sale of alcohol would lessen the evil consequences that follow. Dr Rennie: “There is no doubt that alcoholism does aggravate syphilitic infection.” The nation that licenses the rumseller and the prostitute has set to work the two most powerful agents for its decay and destruction. Licensing these two agents is the shortest way to race suicide. A WOMAN’S QUESTION. Much evidence was given of the evil these diseases cause to innocent wives and children. One doctor said in 3 weeks in hi* practice he had had 17 wives who had been infected by their husbands. He also said in 70 per cent, of the young married women who required operations it was due to their husbands infecting ihci . with gonorrhoea. At Prince Alfred Hospital, which has a night clinic for treatment of these diseases, they got many wives for treatment in this way. The husband comes, and then they ask for the wife to be brought. There was a diversity of opinion as to whether a wife should be told what was the cause of her trouble. One doctor said he would not like to tell a wife what was the matter with her, but he would like to tell the husband what he thought of him.

Dr Worral, for 27 year' connected with Sydney Hospital, *a:d he invari ablv told a wife as he thought it was a cruel wrong not to warn her. Dr K. H. Molesworth thought a wife should be told, but the onus should not be laid upon the medical man. He always urged the husband to make a clean breast of it to his wife. All evidence given tended to show that there never was any certainty as to when these diseases were cured, and mainsad cases were given of husbands who had married, thinking themselves cured, and had infected their wives. Manv witnesses were in favour of making it a criminal offence io pass on this disease to another. Many witnesses told of the large number of wives who were rendered by their husband’s sins unable to bear children at all, or only able to become the mothers of diseased children.

PROPOSED REMEDIES. The remedies proposed fall under two heads: (1) To deal with the* disease amongst us now; (2) To prevent the spread of the disease in the future. Phe t hief measure to deal with the disease was by means of the treatment provided for all who present themselves. Great stress was laid by all medical men upon the necessity of early treatment for these diseases. Patients should be encouraged to come, they should be treated in ordinary hospitals not in special ones. The clinic at Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney was reported to be doing good work, but more accommodation was

wanted. All witnesses were in favour of education on sex hygiene being given to young people, but there was great difference of opinion as to what age this should begin. The education should be by both men and women doctors, and most witnesses thought it would be harmful to begin before 14 years of age. The teaching of the young child should be done by its mother, and the mother who neglects to give this education is guilty of criminal negligence. A very hopeful feature of the evidence was that many witnesses held that teaching should appeal to the moral sense. Dr C. E. Corlctte said a strong moral sense is a more* powerful detnrent than the fear of consequences. Sir T. A. Stuart, M.D. : “At the International Congress held in Brussels in 1900 it was unanimously resolved by delegates from most European and American nations that the most important and most effectual means for combating the diffusion of venereal maladies consist in widespread information as to the importance of these maladies, and the grave danger attending them. It is especially necessary to teach the young men not only that chastity and continence are not injurious, but that these practices are wholly recommended from the medical point of view. With this opinion he was absolutely in agreement, and it was exactly what he taught in connection with the* men training in the camps. W AR REGULATIONS PILL. This question is to come before our Parliament, introduced by a clause in the War Regulations Hill. This clause gives the Governor-in-Coune il power to make such provision as he

may think tit for the suppression of prostitution, or the prevention of venereal disease. The W.C T.l . ha* protested against this clause, because when a question like this affecting a large number of women is before a House, composed wholly of men, and any provisions made would be* carried out by male* police and male magistrates and judges, we think the women of this Dominion should know exactly what the Government propose to do. Any measures should be openly passed through the House, and not secretly brought in by Order-in-Couacil. We voice our protest against any return to the bad old days of Star Chamber legislation.

It seems to us that all the* Government want is to protect soldiers from disease. It must be* the* part of the* women to see that the*ii measures do not recognise regulation of vic e. The cause of these diseases is the sin of immorality. We must speak with no uncertain voice on this ejuestion. Prostitution and immorality are* sins, venereal disease th«*ir natural ee>n>r. e|ue"ce. Let us attack the sin that e auses the disease. Any measures that would imply a degradation of womanhood. or that would countenance the assumption that women must be enslaved to satisfy men’s lust will mean national decay and ruin. History clearly teaches that nations which respect their women rise* high in the scale of nations. The Germanic nations of old who res pee ted their women and honoured them easily overcarne* the degrades! remnants of the Roman Empire. The German soldier of to-day has been taught that woman is for his convenience only, and the effects of that teac h.ng we re shown in the*ir bestial treatment of the* women e»f Belgium and Northern France*. I.et e'ur soldiers have the higher ideal of “a white life for two.’’ Theft and murder have for centuries been looked upon as crimes, and punished as sue h, hut we still have thieves and murderers. And we doubt not that breakers of the moral law will be* with us. hut let us tell them that immorality is sin, and treat it as such. From the standpoint of national efficienc y it is the deadliest of all "ins, the sin which always brings national ruin and death. While we pity those who have sinned, and are willing to do all we* can to he*lp them with free treatment; let us educate the* rising generation to a higher moral standard. It was onlv

their strong religious feeling that saved the Jews from this vice, and which has kept them a people to this day. It is only by inculcating a strong religious feeling that we can save the youth of to-day. All reform work along these lines will be slow, but it does not matter so much the speed we are travelling at as it matters the direction in which we are going upward, ever upward. Terrible as is the physical suffering and the physi<al menace to the race of these diseases, far more terrible is the moral state of the people which is responsible for their rapid spread. Ihe only prevention is chastity and continence, and these have been pronounced by the highest medical experts as not injurious for a man but good for hint.

“If my body come from brutes, tho' somewhat finer than their own, 1 am heir and this nty kingdom. Shall the royal voice be muter No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the throne, Hold the Sceptre, Human Soul, and rule thy Province of the brute.” WOMKN’S MKF.TING. A public meeting for women was held on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 27th, in the large room of the Y.W.C.A., Herbert Street, Wellington. The meeting was promoted by some of the women’s societies, especially the Society for Protection of Women and Children, and its purpose was to consider certain clauses in the War Regulations Hill affecting women. The room w.i> well tilled, and the chair was occupied by Mrs I.uke. the Mayoress. The first resolution was moved as follows by l)r. Kdith Huntley:—“That this meeting appeals to Parliament to provide, without delay, for free hospital and dispensary treatment of all sufferers from these diseases who voluntarily present themselves for treatment, and also to inaugurate a campaign of preventive education.” It was useless, she said, for the Government to try openly to reinstate the C.D. Acts, for they knew that New Zealand women would never allow it, and their vote gave them power to oppose. But if women were not keenly watchful, they might find equivalent legislation being brought in through Orders-in-Council, as provided for in the War Regulations Hill.

As women objected to the attempt to deal with prostitution and venereal diseases by the methods of the C.I). Acts, they, were bound to suggest other measures in their place, and so far the only ones they could suggest were those embodied in this resolution. One thing every woman could do to help, and that was to write to the M.P. of her district, asking him to state his attitude towards these particular clauses in the* W ar Regulations Bill. She read three letters from a member of Parliament that she had written to, stating that the intention of clause V. was not to reintroduce the C.D. Acts, but to give* the police power to prosecute the keepers of one-woman brothels. Hut, she asked, were women satisfied with such an assertion, in view of the* undefined powers conferred on the Government by the clause* in question? The member had to admit it was quite possible to place on it an interpretation totally different from the* one just stated. She was glad to be* able to tell them that a meeting of 50 or more women had just been held in Nelson, at which similar resolutions of protest had bee*n passed. The resolution was briefly seconded by Mrs Houlder, of the Wellington District W.C.T.C., and was unanimously carried. The second resolution: “That this meeting of women strongly protests against Section 3, Clause (d) (v), of the War Regulations Hill, which confers on the Governor-in-Council the power to make regulation provisions for the suppression of prostitution and the prevention of venereal diseases, and urgently suggests that any such provisions should be openly moved and discussed by Parliament, and submitted to representatives of women’s societies,” was moved by Dr. Platts-Mills, who said that for five generations, ever since the first efforts put forth by Josephine Butler, women had been working to free theii weaker sisters from the igrominv of regulated vice. All the legislation on the subject had been made in order to make vice more easy and safe for men, but any proposal to restrain men, or even to heal them, had been howled down.

The resolution was seconded by Dr. von Danneville in a few forceful sentences, and was unanimously carried. A collection was taken up to defray the expenses of the meeting, and on

the motion of Mrs Atkinson, it was resolved that any surplus should be given to the fund for the widows and orphans of sailors lost in the North Sea battle.

The third resolution, “That this meeting views with indignation the proposal of the War Regulations Hill to give the Governor-in-Count il power to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquor to women, and calls ui>on the Government, in the interests of national economy and efficiency, to regulate the sale to men and women alike by putting six o'clock closing of hotel bars upon the Statute Book without delay,” was moved by Mrs Me Vicar, ;:nd seconded by Mrs Donaldson, who emphasised the point that there must be one law operating for both sexes. She protested against the indignity put upon women by the insertion of the words “to women” in the clause referred to, and urged that if, as we should be told, the regulation was intended to apply to the “unfortunate class,” it was all the more the duty of the more fortunate and the stronger to stand by their weaker sifters, and help them by their strength. The resolution was carried unanimously, after which a hearty vote of thanks was passed to Mrs Luke for so ably presiding, and to the Y.W.C.A. for the use of their room. In answer to a question, it was stated that the free dispensary and free treatment of venereal diseases, advocated by the British Royal Commission, was already being tried, and that Manchester so far showed the best results, which bid fair to prove this method successful in stamping out dread disease. < NHL SON. A representative meeting of women was held on June 26th to protest against the two clauses in i’ne War Regulations Amendment Bill, referring to the sale of intoxicants to women and the prevention of venereal diseases. The meeting was well attended, and the following resolutions were passed, being moved by Miss Atkinson and Mrs Field respectively: (1) “That this meeting of women of Nelson requests the Government to delete the words ‘to women’ in clause (i.ii) of sub-section (d), section 3, of the War Regulations Amendment Bill.”

(2) “That this meeting of representative women of Nelson urges on the Government that the powers suggested in section 3, sub-section (d), clause (v.), shotfld not include the power of re-introducing the objectionable features of the C-L). Acts. It urges that the right of examination of a woman should not be granted to any one but a suitable woman. It further urges that greater fatalities be granted for free voluntary consultation and treatment, night clinics, and edut atioo in the scientific and moral aspects of venereal diseases. It is urged ti.it any legislation on the foregoing lines should be incorporated in the Main Act, with every opportunity for open discussion, and not dealt with by Order of Governor-in-Council.” Copies of the resolutions have been forwarded to the Premier, to the Hon. Mr llerdman, an'd to the Member for Nelson.