H(9 Ti9 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library HQ 31.P19 All books are subject to recall after two weeks. Oiln/Kroch Library DATE DUE QAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. Plain Facts About a Great Evil BY CHRISTABEL PANKHURST, LL.B. NEW YORK: THE SOCIOLOGICAL FUND OF THE MEDICAL REVIEW OF REVIEWS 1913 Copyright, 1913, by Christabil Fankhurst TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF TOMORROW C-vn CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ^ The End of a Conspiracy 13 A Woman's Question 24 How to Cure the Great Pestilence ... 34 The Extent of the Evil 47 Chastity and the Health of Men ... 58 The Dangers of Marriage — I 71 The Dangers of Marriage — II 87 The Decline of the Birth-rate .... 102 What Women Think 112 APPENDIX The Truth about the Piccadilly Flat . . 137 The Government and White Slavery . . 148 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021842889 INTRODUCTION This book deals with what is commonly de- scribed as the Hidden Scourge, and is written with the intention that this scourge shall be hidden no longer, for if it were to remain hid- den, then there would be no hope of abolishing it. Men writers for the most part refuse to tell what the Hidden Scourge is, and so it becomes the duty of women to do it. The Hidden Scourge is sexual disease, which takes two chief forms — syphilis and gonorrhoea. These diseases are due to pros- titution — they are due, that is to say, to sexual immorality. But they are not confined to those who are immoral. Being contagious, they are communicated to the innocent, and especially to wives. The infection of innocent wives in marriage is justly declared by a man 5 6 Introduction doctor to be "The crowning infamy of our so- cial life." Generally speaking, wives who are thus in- fected are quite ignorant of what is the matter with them. The men who would think it in- delicate to utter in their hearing the words syphilis and gonorrhoea, seem not to think it indelicate to infect them with the terrible dis- eases which bear these names. The sexual diseases are the great cause of physical, mental, and moral degeneracy, and of race suicide. As they are very widespread (from 75 to 80 per cent, of men becoming in- fected by gonorrhoea, and a considerable percentage, difficult to ascertain precisely, be- coming infected with syphilis), the problem is one of appalling magnitude. To discuss an evil, and then to run away from it without suggesting how it may be cured, is not the way of Suffragettes, and in the following pages will be found a proposed cure for the great evil in question. That cure. Introduction 7 briefly stated, is Votes for Women and Chastity for Men. Quotations and opinions from eminent medical men are given, and these show that chastity for men is healthful for themselves and is imperative in the interests of the race. The use of remedies, such as mercury and "606," is no substitute for the prevention of sexual disease. Drugs and medical concoc- tions will not wash away the mental and moral injury sustained by the men who practise im- morality, nor are they adequate as a cure for the body. The sexual diseases are particu- larly intractable to cure, and it is never possi- ble to prove that a cure has been efi^ected, so that the disease, while apparently cured, is often only hidden and ready to break out again. Regulation of vice and enforced medical in- spection of the White Slaves is equally futile, and gives a false appearance of security which is fatal. Chastity for men — or, in other 8 Introduction words, their observance of the same moral standard as is observed by women — is there- fore indispensable. Votes for Women will strike at the Great Scourge in many ways. When they are citi- zens women will feel a greater respect for themselves, and will be more respected by men. They will have the power to secure the enact- ment of laws for their protection, and to strengthen their economic position. The facts contained in this book constitute an overwhelming case for Votes for Women. They afford reasons more urgent and of greater human importance than any other, that women should have the Vote. The knowledge of what the Hidden Scourge really is, and pf how multitudes of women are the victims of it, will put a new and great passion into the movement for political enfran- chisement. It will make that movement more than ever akin to all previous wars against slavery. Introduction g The facts contained in this book are not without their bearing upon the question of militancy. There has been vigorous criticism of the policy of destroying property for the sake of Votes for Women. That criticism is silenced by the retort that men have destroyed, and are destroying, the health and life of women in the pursuit of vice. One of the chief objects of the book is to enlighten women as to the true reason why there is opposition t-o giving them the vote. That reason is sexual vice. The opponents of Votes for Women know that women, when they are politically free, and economically strong, will not be purchas- able for the base uses of vice. Those who want to have women as slaves, obviously do not want women to become vo- ters. All the high-sounding arguments against giving votes to women are a sham — a mere at- tempt to cover up the real argument against lo Introdttction this! reform, which argument, we repeat, is sexual vice. It is said by hypocritical opponents of Votes for Women that women must not vote because men protect them already. Women will not listen to that excuse any longer, now that they know what men's protection means. It is in the interests of the nation that these same hypocritical opponents profess to resist Votes for Women. How hollow that argu- ment is seen to be when it is realised that men are constantly infecting and reinfecting the race with vile disease, and so bringing about the downfall of the nation! Decidedly, women's knowledge of the Great Scourge will do more than anything else to bring Votes for Women nearer. Every young woman who reads these pages will be warned of a great danger, whose ex- istence she may not until now have suspected. It is because of the need that young girls shall have timely warning of this danger that the Introdtiction 1 1 question is here discussed in very plain and def- inite terms. It remains to be said that several of the en- suing chapters have appeared in the pages of the Suffragette, and are now with others pub- lished as a book in consequence of many urgent requests that they might be available in permanent form. CHRISTABEL PANKHURST. PLAIN FACTS ABOUT A GREAT EVIL THE END OF A CONSPIRACY At last, the doctors to the rescue! Forty of the most prominent among them have signed a manifesto demanding the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the subject of venereal disease — the disease, that is to say, which is caused by sexual vice. The doctors who have signed this manifesto are forty in number, and they include Sir Thomas Bar- low, Sir William Osier, Sir John Bland Sut- ton, Mr. F. W. Mott, Sir Victor Horsley, Dr. Mary Scharlieb, Mr. D'Arcy Power, They stipulate that the membership of the suggested Royal Commission shall include a substantial majority of medical men. The Suffragettes J3 14 Plain Facts About a Great Evil demand that one-half at least of its members shall be women. The doctors point out that tuberculosis, in- sanity, scarlet fever, typhoid, cancer, and other diseases are being fought by State and pri- vate enterprise, but, they continue, "in all this organised effort there is one noteworthy omis- sion: there has always been a conspiracy of silence as regards venereal disease." The Suffragettes are, according to the judges, not unacquainted with conspiracy of one sort, but we would point out that they long since refused to be a party to the conspiracy of silence regarding venereal disease. For many a day they have been clamouring for something to be done to stamp out this fright- ful plague. The time has come, say the doctors, when it is a national duty to face facts and to bring them prominently to the notice of the public. They state as follows the terrible problem with which the public has to deal : The End of a Conspiracy 15 "The worst form of venereal disease is highly contagious, and dire in its effects. It claims its victims not only from those who have themselves to blame for contracting it. It is one of those diseases that may be trans- mitted from parent to child, so that the off- spring of a sufferer is born with the virus actually in its tissues, to cause, it may be, hid- eous deformity, or blindness, or deafness, or idiocy, ending often in premature, though not untimely, death." Truth to tell, further inquiry is hardly nec- essary, though a Royal Commission will cer- tainly be the means of enlightening women as to the nature and extent of this terrible evil. Men already know a great deal, and doctors know most of all. No Royal Commission is needed to discover the cause of venereal dis- ease. Its cause is perfectly well known. As one writer has well expressed it, "the breed- ing-place of all venereal diseases without ex- ception is in the social institution called 1 6 Plain Facts About a Great Evil prostitution, or sexual promiscuity; in the de- basement and degradation of what should be the highest of physical powers — those involved in the act of generation." The doctors urge that both the cure and prevention of venereal disease shall be consid- ered. Women will lay stress upon prevention, because even if cure were possible in the phys- ical sense, it is impossible in the moral sense. A community which tolerates prostitution is a community which is morally diseased. The man prostitute (for why should we give this name only to the woman partner in immoral- ity?) has his soul infected as well as his body. We repeat that where these terrible diseases are concerned prevention is better than cure. It is not only better than cure, but it is the only cure, for whether these diseases are cura- ble even in the narrowest sense of the term is very doubtful, and even when cured they can be contracted again. Everybody admits that one attack of gonorrhoea does not give immu- The End of a Conspiracy 17 nity against subsequent attacks, and the idea that one attack of syphilis gives immunity from other attacks is not very seriously enter- tained by experts. As one authority says: "The reason why so few cases of reinfection are seen is because so few cases are really cured, i. e. they are syphilitic and cannot be reinfected." As the hope of curing venereal diseases is so illusory, prevention is obviously the true policy. No individual can hope to avoid these diseases except by abstaining from immoral sexual intercourse, and similarly a nation can- not remain uninfected so long as prostitution exists. Therefore prostitution must go! At this shrieks of protest will be raised. We shall hear the usual balderdash about "human na- ture" and "injury to man's health." Human nature is a very wide term, and it covers a multitude of sins and vices which are not on that account any the more to be tolerated. It 1 8 Plain Facts About a Great Evil is human nature to rob and to kill. Cannibal- ism itself is in the nature of certain human be- ings. Robbing, killing, and cannibalism are nevertheless all forbidden, and the people who venture to let go their "human nature" in these directions are comparatively few! Why is human nature to have full scope only in the one direction of sexual vice? The answer to that question is that men have got all the power in the State, and therefore make not only the laws of the State, but also its morality. According to man-made morality, a woman who is immoral is a "fallen" woman and is unfit for respectable society, while an immoral man is simply obeying the dictates of his hu- man nature, and is not even to be regarded as immoral. According to man-made law, a wife who i? even once unfaithful to her husband has done him an injury which entitles him to divorce her. She can raise no plea of "human nature" in her defence. On the other hand, a The End of a Conspiracy 19 man who consorts with prostitutes, and does this over and over again throughout his mar- ried life, has, according to man-made law, been acting only in accordance with human nature, and nobody can punish him for that. One is forced to the conclusion, if one ac- cepts men's account of themselves, that wom- en's human nature is something very much cleaner, stronger, and higher than the human nature of men. But Suffragettes, at any rate, hope that this is not really true. They have more faith in men than men have in them- selves, and they believe that a man can live as pure and moral a life as a woman can. The woman's ideal is to keep herself untouched un- til she finds her real mate. Let that be the man's ideal, too! Men's health can be preserved only at the price of prostitution — such is the ridiculous and wicked theory advanced by many men and some doctors. The truth is, that prostitution is the greatest of all dangers to the health of 20 Plain Facts About a Great Evil men. In the first place there is the risk amounting to certainty of infection by the ter- rible diseases we are considering. Not only so, but prostitution involves a futile and waste- ful expenditure of men's energy — energy which they greatly need to enable them to hold their own in science, art, athletics, industry, and commerce. And what of women's health? No longer will they accept the theory that their health and dignity are to be sacrificed to the health of the other sex. Merely to state the proposi- tion that women should sufifer physically and spiritually for the benefit of men is to show its falsity. Nature certainly never intended so monstrous a thing! Indeed, it is very plain to anyone with the smallest intelligence that the ruin of women means the ultimate ruin of men. It did not need the doctors' manifesto to warn the more instructed amongst women that prostitution and the diseases caused by it are The End of a Conspiracy 21 a menace to themselves and their children. But vast numbers of women are still without this knowledge. Innocent wives are infected by their husbands. They suffer torment; their health is ruined; their power to become mothers is destroyed, or else they become the mothers of diseased, crippled, blind, or insane children. But they are not told the reason of all this. Their doctor and their husband keep them in ignorance, so that they cannot even protect themselves from future danger. Healthy girls enter into marriage without the smallest idea of the risk they are incurring. Nobody tells them, as Dr. John W. Barrett tells us in his article in the Bedrock, the scien- tific review, that "we know, from very careful insurance medical records, that the great ma- jority of men put themselves in the way of in- fection before marriage." Those who read this statement will have their minds prepared to receive the further ap- palling statement, widely accepted by medical 22 Plain Facts About a Great Evil authorities, that 75 per cent, to 80 per cent, of men have before marriage been infected with one form of venereal disease. Some of these men may seem to be cured, but we have seen how Httle cure in this connection means. Very sad cases are on record of men who marry when apparently cured, and yet infect their wife. It is therefore hardly too much to say that out of every four men there is only one who can marry without risk to his bride. Such facts are terrible indeed, but the sooner they are grasped the better for the individual and for the race. Even after marriage danger arises over and over again unless the husband abstains from immoral acts. In future chapters we shall show more fully what venereal disease means to a woman. We may point out in passing that prostitu- tion and its evils are largely a medical ques- tion, and must be dealt with by medical men. Medical means of doing away with prostitu- The End of a Conspiracy 23 tion are already used by the Government to make prostitution unnecessary in the prisons. Prison doctors administer a medicine which keeps under control a "human nature" of men prisoners. It would indeed be an extraordinary thing if the medical profession, which has discov- ered a means of regulating every other bodily function, should be unable to tell men how to regulate the sex function, and to prevent that excessive sex activity which, as they them- selves admit, is fatal to the health of the race. We look to the medical profession, there- fore, to come to the rescue of men whose will- power fails them; to come to the rescue of wives whose life will otherwise be blighted by disease; to come to the rescue of children yet unborn, who, unless help is forthcoming, will enter into a cruel inheritance. A high privi- lege it will be to rid humanity of a most awful scourge. A WOMAN'S QUESTION The Prime Minister has been holding forth on the subject of the prevention of tuberculo- sis. A most desirable thing, but it is even more desirable that the Prime Minister shall talk about another and even more terrible form of disease, and that he shall try to pre- vent it — that he shall strike at the cause of sexual disease. The cause of sexual disease is the subjec- tion of women. Therefore to destroy the one we must destroy the other. Viewed in the light of that fact, Mr. Asquith's opposition to votes for women is seen to be an overwhelm- ing public danger. As we have said, sexual disease — or vene- real disease, as it is commonly called — is more to be dreaded than even tuberculosis. It must ' 24 A Woman's Question 25 first be remembered that the whole truth about the effects, direct and indirect, of venereal dis- ease is not yet known. New discoveries are being made every day, and each discovery re- veals fresh reason for the belief that venereal disease is humanity's greatest scourge. As everybody knows, the more serious forms of venereal disease are two, namely, syphilis and gonorrhoea. One authority says that among the causes of death syphilis comes next to tuberculosis in frequency. This state- ment must be supplemented by others before we can realise the full gravity of the matter. Firstly, owing to the campaign of silence now breaking down, medical certificates for the cause of death are often so arranged as to con- ceal the part played by syphilis, and therefore the available statistics do not fully represent the facts. Secondly, the syphilitic character of several "ailments formerly supposed to be non- syphilitic is now being recognised. Various 26 Plain Facts About a Great Evil other ailments are coming under suspicion, and this suspicion that they are syphilitic is only too likely to be established by further medical research. Thirdly, syphilis, by diminishing the power of resistance of the organism, renders the ef- fect of all illnesses and accidents more serious. There is also this to be noted in drawing the comparison between tuberculosis and syphilis. Syphilis is a powerful predisposing cause to tuberculosis. Moreover, there is also a form of consumption which is definitely syphilitic. We may also add that syphilis is now recog- ised as being a strong predisposing cause to cancer. Even in the present imperfect state of knowledge, it is safe to say that syphilis, which is one only of the venereal diseases, ousts tu- berculosis as the most potent single cause of physical degeneracy and of mortality. For women the question of venereal disease has a special and a tragic interest. It strikes A Woman's Question 27 at them in their own person and through their children. A woman infected by syphiUs not only suffers humiliation and illness which may eventually take the most revolting form, but is in danger of becoming the mother of de- formed, diseased, or idiot children. Why are such children born into the world? women have often cried in despair. The answer is — Syphilis! Miscarriage is frequently caused by the same disease. Indeed nothing, as one doctor says, is so murderous to the offspring as syphilis. Rather different, though hardly less terrible where women are concerned, is the effect of gonorrhoea. In future chapters we deal more fully with this matter. Here we may say that gonorrhcea is one of the most prevalent of all diseases. It is acquired before marriage by 75 per cent, or 85 per cent, of men, and it is very often contracted after marriage by such men as are not entirely faithful to their wives. To men the disease ogives compara- 28 Plain Facts About a Great Evil tively little trouble, and in the old days the doctors made very light of it. But to women, owing to their physiological structure, it is one of the gravest of all dis- eases. A very large number of married women are infected by their husbands with gonorrhoea. The common result is sterility, which prevents the birth of any child, or may prevent the birth of more than one child. Race Suicide! Generally speaking, the female ailments which are urged by some ignoble men as a rea- son against the enfranchisement of women are not due to natural weakness, but — to gonorrhoea. Women— and there are so many of them — who "have never been well since they married," are victims of gonorrhoea. An enormous percentage of the operations upon women are necessitated by this disease, which in many cases so affects the organs of maternity as to necessitate their complete removal. Race Suicide again. A Woman's Question 29 These are awful truths, so awful that the woman's instinct is to keep them hidden, un- til she realises that only by making these truths known can this appalling state of affairs be brought to an end. Women have suffered too much from the conspiracy of silence to allow that conspiracy to last one minute longer. It has been an established and admitted rule in the medical profession to keep a wife in ignorance of the fact that she has become the victim of vene- real disease. A bride struck down by illness within a few days, or within a few weeks, of her wedding day is told by her husband and the doctor that she is suffering from appendicitis, and under cover of this lie her sex organs are removed without her knowl- edge. Women whose husbands contract syphilis, and are in turn infected, are kept in ignorance of this, and are thus unable to protect themselves and to do their duty by the future generation. 30 Plain Facts About a Great Evil Here we have the woman question in per- haps its most urgent and acute form. Have the Anti-Suffragist women any idea of what the wrongs of women really are? We beg them to realise that so long as the subjection of women endures and is confirmed by law and custom, so long will the race be injured and degraded, and women be victimised. Sexual disease, we say again, is due to the subjection of women. It is due, in other words, to the doctrine that woman is sex and beyond that nothing. Sometimes this doctrine is dressed up in the saying that women are mothers and beyond that nothing. What a man who says that really means is that women are created primarily for the sex gratification of men, and secondarily, for the bearing of children if he happens to want them, but of no more children than he wants. As the result of this belief the relation be- tween man and woman has centred in the physical. What is more, the relation between A Woman's Question 31 man and woman has been that of an owner and his property — of a master and his slave — ^not the relation of two equals. From that evil has sprung another. The man is not satisfied to be in relation with only one slave; he must be in relation with many. That is to say, sex promiscuity has arisen, and from that has in its turn come disease. And so at the beginning of this twentieth century in civilised Britain we have the doctors breaking through the secrecies and traditions of long years, and sounding the note of alarm. This canker of venereal disease is eating away the vitals of the nation, and the only cure is Votes for Women, which is to say the recogni- tion of the freedom and human equality of women. The effect of women's enfranchisement will, where this question of redeeming the race is concerned, be manifold. There are three sets of people mainly responsible for dealing with the problem — the ordinary man, the ordinary 32 Plain Facts About a Great Evil woman, and the medical profession. The medical profession has until now viewed the question of venereal disease chiefly from the standpoint of the man. As woman's influence increases, her interests and the interests of her children — in a word, the interests of the race — begin to take their due place in medical consid- eration. This process will not be complete un- til the equality of women is recognised and en- acted by the law. Then we shall have doctors taking the sound, balanced view that the moral and physical health of the race transcends their "obligations" to foolish individuals who, for the sake of indulgences of which they them- selves are ashamed, would wreck the lives of themselves, their wives, and their children. We shall have doctors applying themselves to the task of helping men, if need be by medi- cinal means, to live as befits a highly-evolved and self-respecting human being. The outcome of enfranchisement will be to make women hate more than 'anything else A Woman's Question 33 in the world the very thought of selling them- selves into slavery as under the conditions of the present day so many of them do sell them- selves. The weapon of the vote will enable them to break down existing barriers to honest livelihood. Upon men the efifect of women's enfran- chisement will be to teach them that women are their human equals, and not the sub-human species that so many men now think them ; not slaves to be bought and soiled and degraded and then cast away. We know to what bodily and spiritual cor- ruption the subjection of women has brought humanity. Let us now see to what cleanness and nobility we can arrive through her eman- cipation ! HOW TO CURE THE GREAT PESTILENCE The re-education of men upon sexual matters is one of the most urgent needs of the day. At present their minds are chokeful of igno- rant and unclean superstition as to their own sex nature, and they entertain beliefs on this question which are directly contrary to medi- cal opinion, and produce the most deplorable results so far as themselves, women, and the race are concerned. Although doctors affirm that a pure and continent life is never the cause of disease, whereas immorality is the greatest of all foes to health, still the opposite theory is maintained by millions of men. It is because of men's ignorance and super- stition that prostitution is so widely thought to be inevitable. Immoral intercourse with prostitutes men are pleased to term "the ex- 34 How to Cure the Great Pestilence 35 ercise of their natural functions," and now that a determined crusade is being waged against prostitution, those who wage that cru- sade are accused of defying Nature. Nature, indeed! As though Nature had not decreed a punishment for sexual immorality such as she imposes in respect of no other sin! The horrible disease against which doctors are crying out at the present day is the direct outcome of prostitution, which must hencefor- ward be classed with the other unnatural vices. What every woman believes, who is not dis- eased or else morally corrupted by acute pov- erty on the one hand or excessive luxury and irresponsibility on the other, is this : sexual in- tercourse where there exists no bond of love and spiritual sympathy is beneath human dignity. That such intercourse is forbidden by Nature herself, and more strictly forbidden and more harshly punished than any other sin, we have already said. Until men in general accept the views on the sex question held by 36 Plain Facts About a Great Evil all normal women, and until they live as cleanly as normal women do, the race will be poisoned, as it is to-day, by foul disease. Very reluctant are men to receive and act upon this truth. Always they want to sin and escape the consequences. To persist in sexual immorality and to remain free from sexual disease is their impossible ideal. Even now, when the health and sanity of our race are at stake, men are trifling with a great peril, and are pretending that immorality can be made safe. In the first place, they proclaim that they have found at last the cure for which they have been seeking throughout the centuries. A cure for sexual disease, which is of all dis- eases the most incurable! — as though Nature had not willed that there should be no way of escape from this scourge except one, and that one way the way of purity. This boasted new cure is called Salvarsan or 606, and men are speaking of this supposed remedy as though How to Cure the Great Pestilence 37 its discovery were a licence to them to go and sin in safety. But what is the truth of the matter ? This cure is by no means proved to be a cure. The doctors are disagreeing about it, and with the best will in the world to believe that Salvarsan will cure syphilis, they cannot shut their eyes to the very ominous facts which manifest themselves in connection with the use of this remedy. Quite recently an inquest was held in London upon a man of forty-two, who died after an injection of Salvarsan. Dr. Willcox, the expert in poisons, who was called to give evidence, expressed the opinion that death was due to delayed poisoning caused by the arsenic in the injection. But a little while ago, he said, a woman died in a similar way. A French medical expert, M. Hallopeau, in a treatise on the eradication of syphilis, says: "Salvarsan is not without serious draw- backs. In the first place, its efficacy is far from being absolute. In a number of cases, 38 Plain Facts About a Cheat Evil which vary according to the statistics from one-tenth to a quarter, the disease is not cured, and at the end of a few months new symptoms appear. In the second place, the remedy is not harmless when administered, for one has seen up to the present more than a hundred cases of death admittedly due to its action, and this figure must necessarily be smaller than the number of deaths that actually occur, for these intimate dramas have only two wit- nesses — the patient and the doctor, and if the patient disappears it is so much to the doctor's interest to be silent that he must almost neces- sarily succumb to this temptation." Dr. Marshall, surgeon to the British Skin Hospital, at a conference held some months ago, refused to admit that the curative power of Salvarsan has been proved, because as he said, "In such a disease as syphilis the value of a new drug cannot be estimated till it has been tried for at least ten years. The chief tests of the efficacy of such a drug are its How to Cure the Great Pestilence 39 powers in preventing tertiary or parasyphi- litic manifestations and the transmission of disease to the offspring. This remedy," added Dr. Marshall, "appears to be. liable to cause severe toxic effects, sometimes ending fatally. No doubt many of the deaths after Salvarsan were due to faulty technique and like causes, but a certain number are difficult to explain, except by arsenical poisoning." These opinions concerning Salvarsan are entertained by many other medical authorities ;■ even the discoverer of Salvarsan, Dr. Ehrliels, now claims no more for it than that it is "a valu- able adjunct to treatment." It is obvious, even to the lay mind, that a remedy whose ad- vocates allege that it can swiftly destroy one of the most virulent and prolonged of mala- dies, must itself be a dangerous substance — a veritable two-edged sword. In fact we are brought back again to the obvious truth that the only certain cure of sexual disease is pre- vention. 40 Plain Facts About a Great Evil The next method by which men hope to se- cure immunity from the consequences of ill- doing is that of the State regulation and recognition of vice. Some would disguise this system by calling it by another name. But one man, at any rate, has had the courage of his convictions. He is Major French, of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Whether or not as a representative of the Government is as yet unascertained, he read a paper before the International Medical Congress. He recom- mends that the State should assume "the effec- tual control of openly-practised prostitution by the localisation of irreclaimable women into certain areas or streets." These women would be periodically inspected, perhaps once or twice a week, in order to see whether they were diseased, and if diseased they would be isolated and treated, and then men would again begin the task of making them diseased. Anticipating the objection that the main- tenance and medical treatment of these women How to Cure the Great Pestilence 41 victims of immorality would involve a very- heavy charge upon the public funds, Major French makes the extraordinary and menda- cious statement that prolonged treatment is only necessary in the case of syphilis, and that one or two months' adequate treatment and isolation would be sufficient in the case of gon- orrhoea. Considering that persons apparently cured of gonorrhoea have three or four years later been known to infect another healthy per- son, the dangerous character of Major French's false statement will be seen. There is, according to Major French's scheme, to be no compulsory medical inspec- tion of men, because, he says, "men infected with venereal disease are not so dangerous as women, because a woman practising prostitu- tion usually associates with numerous men, and a man could not and does not associate with a like number of women." We maintain that, on the contrary, a dis- eased man is far more dangerous than a dis- 42 Plain Facta About a Great Evil eased prostitute, because every man is free to abstain, and knowing the dangers involved he is a fool if he does not abstain, from inter- course with a prostitute, whereas the man who is diseased can, and in innumerable cases does, communicate his disease to his unsuspecting wife and to his children. The plea for State regulation of vice is, ac- cording to Major French, based on "the car- dinal fact that prostitution has always existed, and unfortunately must continue to do so for all time." What this means, put into other words, is that men will always sacrifice their own self-respect, and the health of their wife and family, on the altar of immorality. We think better of men than this, provided that the necessary work of education and reform is done amongst them. Major French must really speak for himself, and not for other men! It is contended that since the system of regulated vice was established in connection How to Cure the Great Pestilence 43 with the Indian Army the percentage of the cases of syphiHs in that army has been reduced. Major French in saying this ignores the fact that of late years those at the head of the Indian Army have enjoined upon the soldiers the possibility and the necessity, from the health point of view, of a moral life. Thus Lord Kitchener issued a memorandum to every soldier, in which he said : "It is neces- sary that those who are serving their country in India should exert to the utmost those- powers of self-restraint with which every man is provided, in order that he may exercise a proper control over his appetites." Lord Kitchener further declared "that every man can by self-control restrain the indul- gence of those imprudent and reckless im- pulses that so often lead men astray." Sir George White and Lord Wolseley have issued statements to soldiers on the same lines. The soldiers who become infected by disease are punished by loss of promotion, forfeiture of 44 Plain Facts About a Great Evil first-class pay, and in other ways, and this has obviously a salutary effect. It is to be noticed, too, that a decline in venereal disease has also taken place in the Home Army, although there is no State regu- lation of vice where the Home Army is con- cerned. Another point to be noticed is that, in spite of the regulation of vice in Berlin, a high medical authority is of the opinion that in that city every man who reaches the age of thirty has, on an average, had gonorrhoea twice, and every fourth or fifth man has had syphilis! State regulation of vice has been tried in many countries, and always it has failed — its failure being now almost universally admitted by medical men. But it is not the opinion of medical men or the opinion of women which will necessarily prevail, if things are left to take their course, and there is danger that an attempt may be made, under cover of what will be called "noti- How to Cure the Great Pestilence 45 fication of disease," to establish some form of State regulation of vice and State control of women of a certain class. Against any such system women will fight to the very death. No woman-slavery of that kind can be tolerated at this time of day. If men venture to re-establish in this country a system according to which certain women will be segregated, controlled, and medically ex- amined for the purposes of vice, that will mean the establishment of a sex war. It will mean that women in general, not only for the sake of the slave women but for their own sake, will regard men as contemptible and degraded be- ings. Even though, by the degradation of a slave class of women, men could keep their bodies clean, they could not keep their minds clean, and the modern woman, emancipated as she already is spiritually, and as she soon will be politically, will have nothing to do with men who are foul in mind. 46 Plain Facts About a Great Evil The great pestilence, this sexual disease which is ravaging the community, makes a problem that has got to be solved. And now that we all know what is wrong, none of us can rest until it is put right. But the quack- ery of regulated vice must be put aside once and for all. Also, while medical treatment will, and ought to be, fully available to those diseased, there can be no reliance upon reme- dies as a substitute for clean living. The real cure of the great plague is a two- fold one — Votes for Women, which will give to women more self-reliance and a stronger economic position, and chastity for men. THE EXTENT OF THE EVIL As might be expected, the statements that we make as to sexual disease and its causes evoke a good deal of comment on the part of men. Some men say that they completely endorse our statements of fact, and that they agree with us that Votes for Women and chastity for men are the sole cures for sexual disease. Other men offer criticism. These critics say, in the first place, that our statements as to the prevalence of sexual dis- ease amongst men are exaggerated. In the second place, they say that the reason of men's vice is an economic one, and that if men could afford to marry they would ho longer have intercourse with prostitutes. It is, of course, principally Socialist men who adopt this sec- ond line of argument. There is a complete answer to both these ob- 47 48 Plain Facts About a Great Evil jections. Firstly, as to the denial of our as- sertion that 75 per cent, to 80 per cent, of men contract gonorrhoea. Men's favourite method of arguing against women is to deny their statements of fact. But as it happens, the as- sertion in question is not made upon our own authority, but upon that of medical men. This is what great medical authorities say as to the percentage of men who contract gon- orrhoeai — the malady which is so dangerous to the wives, who in thousands are infected by a diseased husband. Noeggerath says that in New York, out of 1000 married men, 800 have had gonorrhoea, and that 90 per cent, of these have not been healed and can infect their wives. Ricord also says that 80 per cent, of men contract gonorrhoea, and says further: "When anyone has once acquired gonorrhoea God only knows when he will get well again." Neisser, who discovered the gonococcus, says: "The statement that of the adult male The Extent of the Evil 49 population inhabiting large towns, only an in- significant proportion escapes gonorrhosal in- fection is not at all exaggerated." Dr. A. Prince Morrow, author of Social Diseases and Marriage, says: "Gonorrhoea is the most widespread and universal of all dis- eases in the adult male population, embracing 75 per cent, or more." Taylor, in his book on venereal diseases, says : "We are certainly warranted in assert- ing that gonorrhoea, taken as a whole, is one of the most formidable and far-reaching in- fections by which the human race is attacked." Finger, the great German authority on gonorrhoea, says: "Gonorrhoea of the male urethra is probably the most frequent disease with which the practical physician has to deal. With it he usually begins his early practice, and until the end it causes him many anxious hours. Frequent as is the disease, it is equally ungrateful as regards a positive and radical cure." 50 Plain Facts About a Great Evil Dr. Douglas White, M.D., and Dr. C. H. Melville, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who jointly prepared a paper on venereal dis- ease read at the Annual Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health, said: "The ma- jority of all young men get gonorrhoea before the age of thirty." These statements of fact may be supple- mented by two further statements. One is that, as James Foster Scott, M.D.,* expresses it, "In every case where a woman is infected with gonorrhoea, she is in danger not only of being rendered a permanent invalid and bar- ren, but also of losing her life from peritonitis and septicaemia." In mild cases a woman suffers from the "poor health" that is falsely supposed to be Nature's gift to women. In severe cases the sex organs have to be removed by the surgeon's knife. Dr. Prince Morrow says: "All modern * Scott: "The Sexual Instinct," published by E. B. Treat 4 Co., N. Y. The Extent of the Evil 51 writers on the diseases of women recognise that gonorrhoea is the chief determining cause of the inflammatory diseases peculiar to women." A further point to be noticed is that it is to all intents and purposes impossible for doctors to give a guarantee of cure, so that a man may marry and infect his wife, although he was apparently cured at the time of the marriage. Dr. Prince Morrow shows that a gonor- rhoea which appears to be cured may really be lying latent, and he says : "The experience of all gynaecologists is concurrent in the conclu- sion that infection of the wife by latent gonor- rhoea in the husband is the most prolific source of illness in married women, often leading to invalidism, unsexing (by surgical operation), or death." Taylor says that in very many cases the infection remains dormant, latent, and un- recognised, and these cases may drag on for 52 Plain Facts About a Great Evil one or more, and even five, ten, or twenty years without giving any indication of lurking trouble, when for some reason or other the disease may break out again. The result, of course, is that the wife of the man so diseased becomes infected. Other cases are seen, says James Foster Scott, that defy all measures of treatment. Price, an American authority on the ques- tion at issue, says that out of looo abdominal operations on women, 950— all save 50! — were the result of conditions due to gonor- rhoea. These few quotations from great authori- ties are more than enough to establish our con- tention that 75 per cent, to 80 per cent, of men acquire gonorrhoea; moreover, they are a warning to men to abstain from vice and a warning to women of the grave danger of mar- riage so long as the moral standards of men continue to be lower than their own. And now to reply to the statement of our The Extent of the Evil 53 critics who say that the reason of sexual vice is an economic one, and that if all men could afford to marry, prostitution would disappear. That this contention is unfounded is proved by these facts. Firstly, that rich men, who can perfectly well afford to marry, are quite as immoral as poorer men. Secondly, that married men as well as unmarried men have intercourse with prostitutes. The problem of vice is certainly an eco- nomic one in this sense, that where women are economically dependent upon men, they more readily become the victims of vice. It should be noticed that the man*s instinctive endeavour is to keep the woman in a state of economic de- pendence. This desire to keep women in economic subjection to themselves — to have women, as it were, at their mercy — is at the root of men's opposition to the industrial and professional employment of women. If a woman can earn an adequate living by the work of her hand or brain, then it will be 54 Plain Facts About a Great Evil much harder to compel her to earn her living by selling her sex. Here we have the reason why a man-made Socialism is not less dangerous to women than man-made Capitalism. So long as men have the monopoly of political power, it will be im- possible to restrain their impulse to keep women in economic dependence and so sexu- ally subservient. In this sense, as we have said, the question of White Slavery is an eco- nomic one. But as we have also said, and say again, sexual vice is not caused by the poverty of men, because the ranks of the vicious are recruited from the ranks of the rich men, the poor men, and the men of moderate means. As we have further said, and now repeat, marriage does not deter men from vicious courses, because married men as well as unmarried men de- scend to such courses. The fact is that the sex instinct of these men has become so perverted and corrupted The Extent of the Evil 55 that intercourse with virtuous women does not content them. They crave for intercourse with women whom they feel no obHgation to respect. They want to resort to practices which a wife would not tolerate. Lewdness and obscenity is what these men ask for, and what they get in houses of ill-fame. Marriage does not "satisfy" them. They fly to women who will not resent foul words and acts, and will even permit unnatural abuse of the sex function. The facts brought out by the prosecution in the Piccadilly Flat Case, scanty though these facts were, show how matters stand. No wonder decent women are loth to marry, know- ing what they know to-day! And there is another infamous thing to be told. The men, married and unmarried, who visit bad houses are not content to degrade women of full age and mature physical devel- opment. They want young girls, and, if they can get them, virgins. Bernard Shaw, in his 56 Plain Facts About a Great Evil preface to Three Plays by Brieux, cites Brieux's contention, and himself seems to en- dorse it, that no man Hkes to face the respon- sibiHty of tempting a girl to her first step from the beaten path. Mr. Shaw is behind the times, for at the present day it is, as the White Slaves can tell us, "a perfect craze with men" to have intercourse with the youngest possible girl, and they are especially eager to be the first to ruin her. Where is the father instinct which should be prompting every man to defend and not to destroy youth and purity ? The fact is that it is no longer any use for men to try to preserve the illusions of the vir- tuous woman as to what goes on in the under- world. This men must now accept. A double standard of morality means that they will be more and more cast out by self-respect- ing women. Until men accept the same moral standard as women, how can it be said that they are fit companions for them? The Extent of the Evil 57 The virtuous woman has often been con- demned for shrinking from her "fallen sister" and holding out the hand of friendship to the fallen man. Not much longer will women continue to deserve that reproach, because they have come to the conclusion that men are not worthy to associate with them who are not of clean mind and of clean life. CHASTITY AND THE HEALTH OF MEN In urging that Votes for Women and chastity for men are the double cure for the sexual disease that is destroying individuals and the race, we are met by the excuse that chastity for men is dangerous to their health, and that immorality is necessary to the preservation of their health. This excuse is in direct conflict with the highest medical opinion. Medical testimony is that immorality not only soils and debilitates a man's body, but also contaminates his mind. Intractable to cure as is the bodily disease caused by im- morality, the brain stains which it produces are even more difficult to wash away. But since so many men rank the body higher than the mind, it is above all things 58 Chastity and the Health of Men 59 important to make them understand that the physical well-being which they think, or pre- tend to think, that they are achieving by im- morality is actually being destroyed. That immorality causes bodily weakness as well as actual disease is obvious, because the sexual act involves a very great expenditure of a man's energy — energy which can, if it is not expended in that way, be transmuted and expended in other ways, either physical or mental. In support of our contention we may point out that when athletes are in training sexual intercourse, even in the legitimate relation of marriage and in moderation, has to be com- pletely avoided. Considering that a man goes into training with a view to getting himself into a perfect physical condition, the fact to which we have referred is of the very greatest significance. And now we will give, one after another, quotations from medical authorities showing 6o Plain Facts About a Great Evil the desirability, from the point of view of men's health, of an equal moral standard for men and women. The matter is clearly expressed in the fol- lowing statement by the late William Acton, M.R.C.S.: "The argument in favour of incontinence deserves special notice, as it purports to be founded on physiology. I have been con- sulted by persons who feared, or who pro- fessed to fear, that if the organs were not regularly exercised they would become atro- phied, or that in some way impotence might be the result of chastity. There exists no greater error than this, or one more opposed to physiological truth. I may state that I have, after many years of experience, never seen an instance of atrophy of the generative organs from this cause. I have indeed met with the complaint : but in what class of cases does it occur? It arises in all instances from the exactly opposite cause — early abuse; the Chastity and the Health of Men 6i organs become worn out, and hence atrophy- arises. Every year of voluntary chastity ren- ders the task easier by the mere force of habit." Sir T. C. AUbutt, K.C.B., M.D., Regius Professor of Physics, Cambridge, says : "Con- tinence, so far from being harmful, is not harmful at any age." John Kellock Barton, M.D., says: "Con- tinence is possible, and not only compatible with^but conducive to health." Lionel S. Beale says : "No sufficient valid objections have been es- tablished upon reasonable grounds or upon facts of physiology and health to living, nay, to passing the whole life in a state of celibacy. The argument that if marriage cannot, for va- rious reasons, be carried out, it is nevertheless necessary upon physiological grounds that a substitute of some kind should be found is al- together erroneous, and without foundation." Clement Dukes, M.D., Physician of Rugby School, says: 62 Plain Facts About a Great Evil "It is a frequent observation instilled into the young at all ages: 'I am told it is very bad for me to be continent ; my health will suf- fer from it.' No greater lie was ever invented. It is simply a base invention to cover sin, and has no foundation in fact." Very important are the words of G. M. Humphrey, M.D., Professor of Surgery at the University of Cambridge. He says : "There are no organs so much under control as those of generation. Their functions are neither directly nor indirectly in the least es- sential to life — scarcely even to the well-being of the body. The functions of the testicle, like those of the mammary gland and the uterus, may be suspended for a long period, possibly for life; and yet its structure may be sound, and capable of being roused into activ- ity." Says the great surgeon, Bryant : "Unlike other glands, the testicle does not waste or atrophy for want of use, the physical Chastity and the Health of Men 63 parts of man's nature being accurately adapted to the necessities of his position, and to his moral being." The late Sir James Paget, Sergeant-Sur- geon-Extraordinary to the late Queen Victoria, Consulting Surgeon to St. Bartholo- mew's Hospital, says: "Chastity does no harm to mind or body; its discipline is excel- lent." Sir Dyce Duckworth, M.D., Honorary Phy- sician to the King, Treasurer and Representa- tive on the General Medical Council of the Royal College of Physicians, says : "The sex- ual organs can lie dormant for years, can be left alone, out of consideration, and forgotten, so to speak, until the time comes for matri- mony." Sir Andrew Clarke said : "Continence does not harm, does not interfere with development, elevates the whole nature, increases energy, and sharpens insight." The opinion of Sir W. R. Cowers, M.D., 64 Plain Facts About a Great Evil F.R.S., Lecturer of the Medical Society of London, is expressed as follows : "The opinions which on grounds falsely called 'physiological' suggest or permit un- chastity are terribly prevalent among young men, but they are absolutely false. I assert that no man ever yet was in the slightest de- gree or way the worse for continence or the better for incontinence." The lower moral standard of men has al- ways been a cause of offence to women, and men have sought to silence women's condem- nation by assuring them that chastity involves not only injury to the health of men (with this point we have dealt), but also very great phys- ical distress. Upon this matter also the doctors have pronounced, and in a sense de- structive of men's pretensions. The doctors inform us that the immorality to which men resort on the pretext of reliev- ing physical distress is, on the contrary, the very cause of that distress. Chastity and the Health of Men 65 "Fallen men," says James Foster Scott, M.D., "by continual stimulation of their sex- ual passions with erotic thoughts, sensual con- versation and literature, and by the rehearsal of lewd stories, produce in themselves and in others who fall under their noxious influence an uncontrollable passion." Says the same au- thority: "Intercourse with different women is well known morbidly to increase desire." Another important statement made by Dr. Scott is this : "The proper subjugation of the sexual im- pulses and the conservation of the complex seminal fluid, with its wonderfully invigorat- ing influence, develop all that is best and no- blest in men." "It is incontinent men," says W. J. Jacob- son, Surgeon, Guy's Hospital, "who are sub- ject to this constant irritability of the sexual organs, and it is they who, from unshunned excitement, must suffer from an excess of semi- nal secretions and its results. On the other 66 Plain Facts About a Great Evil hand, it is the strictly continent men who keep themselves healthily occupied in mind and body, men who, when attacked by imperious sexual desire, simply sally out and seek in ex- ercise a change of surroundings; to such as these the secretion of semen is soon only suffi- cient to be easily got rid of by an involuntary emission during sleep once or twice a month, a state of things which is perfectly natural." Here we have stated the fact that Nature has supplied an innocent means of relief for men, upon which they ought to depend instead of polluting the bodies of the white slaves. A further statement on this point we take from the writings of James Foster Scott, M.D. and CM. of Edinburgh University, and late Obstetrician to Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington. He says: "Nocturnal emissions of semen occur occa- sionally in all normal men as desirable physio- logical events which give convincing proof of Chastity and the Health of Men 67 virility. Silly men who gain their informa- tion from the evil publications of charlatans who are wholly mercenary in their aims, wrongly attribute these losses to some mischief in the generative functions. The emissions occur with varying frequency in different men, and in the same man at different times. If one takes little exercise, oversleeps, lives on a rich diet, uses tea, coffee, or tobacco to excess, and stimulates his mind with erotic fancies and pursuits, he will probably experience them with more frequency than the active man who directs his energies more to his brain and muscles than to his sensual nature." We may remind here our readers that there exists an effectual but perfectly harmless medicine which is administered by the medical officers of prisons to relieve any physical dis- comfort which men prisoners may experience. Prostitution has been done away with in our prisons by medical means, and therefore there is no reason why by the same means it should 68 Plain Facts About a Great Evil not be abolished in the world of free men |»ut- side the prisons. To sum up! Chastity for men is not only morally imperative, but is also physiolog- ically imperative. Incontinence on the part of men causes a waste of vital force which im- poverishes their moral nature and weakens their body. Furthermore, the incontinence of men gives rise to terrible sexual diseases, whose victims are not themselves alone and the white slaves whom they destroy, but innocent wives and children. Chastity for men, far from causing atrophy of men's sexual organs, is the surest guarantee against atrophy. As a high medical author- ity says: "No continent man need be de- terred by this apocryphal fear of atrophy of the testes from living a chaste life. It is a de- vice of the unchaste — a lame excuse for their incontinence, not founded on any physiolog- ical law. The testes will see to it that their ac- Chastity and the Health of Men 69 tion is not interfered with. Physiologically it is not a fact that the power of secreting semen is annihilated in well-formed adults leading a healthy life and yet remaining continent." Sexuality ought to lie dormant until legitimate occasion arises for its use, when it will be found to exist in full natural vigour. The sexual power of men has been given to them in trust for the perpetuation of the race, and they have not been faithful to that trust. Says a man who is a doctor : "The secretion of the testicles is the hope of the future of the race, and yet if wrongfully used it is so potent that it may figuratively be classed with the se- cretions of the poison fangs of venomous rep- tiles." Although by clean thinking and healthy liv- ing men can gain control over themselves, they renounce that control, and stimulate their de- sires by foul thinking, by obscene words, sights, and acts, by alcohol, and even by drugs and unnatural practices. 70 Plain Facts About a Great Evil Although by medical means they can obtain such aid as may be necessary, and although Nature herself affords an innocent means of relief, these are rejected on the plea that they are dangerous to health. By this excuse men have contrived to bar all ways save the way that conducts them to the brothel! It is essential that women shall, for their own protection, take firm hold of these facts. Let them remember that, in the words of Sir Dyce Duckworth, M.D., Consulting Physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, there are no organs in a man's body that can be better con- trolled than the sexual organs, and then let them say to men: "And what of women's health? Why should it any longer be sacri- ficed, not to your health even, but to your vices ?" ' THE DANGERS OF MARRIAGE— I Women have always known that marriage, viewed as a spiritual union, is not without its risks; that either on the man's part or the woman's part love may fail, or that the clash of temperament or opinion may threaten hap- piness. Hence the old saying that marriage is a lottery. But what women have not known is that marriage as a physical union is (apart from the natural risk of childbirth, which also they foresee) a matter of appalling danger to women. The danger of marriage is due to the low moral standard and the immoral conduct of men. Men before marriage, and often while they are married, contract sexual disease from prostitutes and give this disease to their wives. 71 72 Plain Facts About a Great Evil "The infection of pure women in marriage is," says Dr. Prince Morrow, "the crowning infamy of our social life." He says fur- ther: "Statistics show that the majority of men who marry have contracted disease, and that many are the bearers of contagion to the women they marry. We witness the effects in the women who suffer ill-health, sterility, mutilation of their bodies, and permanent in- validism. Society's only solicitude is that they suffer in silence. In addition, many of them are compelled to suffer the sight of their babies blinded at birth, children aborted or born with the mark of death upon them, or, if they survive, compelled to bear in their frail bodies the stigmata of degeneration and dis- ease which are the heritage of the prosti- tute. . . . No one can deny that these facts, the saddest facts of human experience, are of common occurrence, and they will continue so long as society shuts its eyes to the existence The Dangers of Marriage — 1 72) of this danger to the family, and from a false sense of prudery or a fastidious nicety refuses to be enlightened." There we have a clear statement, and if anything, an under-stzttment, of the risks at- tendant upon marriage. What women must realise is that sexual dis- ease communicated to them by their husbands is the cause of the special ailments and the poor health by which so many women are af- flicted. Women are not naturally invalids, as they have been taught to believeN They are invalids because they are the victims of the sexual diseases known as syphilis and gonor- rhoea. Let every woman not yet married remember that the vast majority of men contract sexual disease in one of its forms before they are married. Let every woman learn that to cure a man of such disease is long and difficult, and strictly speaking impossible, since no doc- tor can give a guarantee that his patient is 74 Plain Facts About a Great Evil cured, and will not immediately, or in years to come, infect his wife. The unmarried woman, whereas now she is well and strong, may within one day of her marriage lose her health for ever. This is a hard saying, but it is true, and women have a right to the protection that knowledge gives. Never again must young women enter into marriage blindfolded. From now onwards they must be warned of the fact that marriage is intensely dangerous, until such time as men's moral standards are completely changed and they become as chaste and clean-living as women. A clear statement of the case is given by Dr. Prince Morrow, when he says : "The conditions created by the marriage re- lation render the wife a helpless and unresist- ing victim. The vinculum matrimonii is a chain which binds and fetters the woman com- pletely, making her the passive recipient of The Dangers of Marriage — I 75 the germs of any sexual disease her husband may harbour. On her wedding night she may, and often does, receive unsuspectingly the poison of a disease which may seriously affect her health and kill her children, or, by extinguishing her capacity for conception, may sweep away all the most cherished hopes and aspirations of married life. She is an in- nocent in every sense of the word. She is in- capable of foreseeing, powerless to prevent, this injury. She often pays with her life for her blind confidence in the man who ignorantly or carelessly passes over to her a disease which he has received from a prostitute. The vic- tims are for the most part young and virtuous women — the idolised daughters, the very flower of womankind." It is not only the men notoriously and obvi- ously immoral who are dangerous as hus- bands. As Dr. Morrow says: "Who are responsible for the introduction of venereal diseases into marriage and the con- 76 Plain Facts About a Great Evil sequent wreckage of the lives of innocent wives and children ? As a rule, men who have pre- sented a fair exterior of regular and correct living — often the men of good business and social position — the men who, indulging in what they regard as the harmless dissipation of 'sowing their wild oats,' have entrapped the gonococci or the germs of syphilis. These men, believing themselves cured it may be, sometimes even with the sanction of the phy- sician, marry innocent women, and implant in them the seeds of disease destined to bear such fearful fruit." In previous articles it has been shown that an overwhelming majority of men put them- selves in the way of infection before marriage by having intercourse with prostitutes, and that 80 per cent, of these men become diseased. These facts give warning to women that the chances are strongly against the man who of- fers himself to them in marriage being healthy. The Dangers of Marriage — I 77 The frequency with which married women are infected by sexual disease is very great. Noeggerath, the great authority, stated that three out of five married women are infected by gonorrhoea. Writing on Gonorrhoea and Puerperal Fever, Tausig says that "every pregnant woman should be examined with a view to detecting a latent gonorrhoea," A great many men claim that before mar- riage they are cured of the sexual disease they have contracted, but this, as we have said, is more than they can prove and more than any doctor can certify. Dominant characteristics of the sexual diseases are the length of their duration, and their tendency to become chronic, and to recur years after every symp- tom seems to have disappeared. As Marshall, a great authority on the ques- tion, says: "In syphilis contagious lesions are known to occur ten years or more after the commencement of the disease, even in 78 Plain Facts About a Great Evil cases which have been properly treated." It must be remembered that the views which doc- tors take as to the time required for the treat- ment of gonorrhoea and syphilis become every day more pessimistic. The modern tendency is for doctors to refuse to give to those wish- ing to marry any guarantee that a cure of sex- ual disease, in either of its forms, has been effected. In this connection Marshall says: "The duty of the medical man ends after pointing out to his patient the possible eventualities in case of his marriage." A point vitally important for women to bear in mind is that unless their husbands are completely chaste and faithful to them after marriage, this same danger that they them- selves will be infected arises. "Unfortunately," as Dr. Prince Morrow says, "in many cases it is the unfaithful hus- band and father who receives the poison from a prostitute in an extra-conjugal adventure, The Dangers of Marriage — I 79 carries it home, and distributes it to his fam- ily." We have in the past referred in general terms to the effects produced by gonorrhoea and syphilis respectively, and now we will ad- dress ourselves to this matter in more detail. Syphilis is the prime cause of race degenera- tion. Insanity, statisticians declare, is on the increase. The cause of that is syphilis. Nerve trouble is also on the increase, we are told — the rush of modern life, telephones, and motor cars being, as people fancy, the reason of it. The true cause again is syphilis. This poison of syphilis working in the race and being over and over again reintroduced is producing results that are the despair of doctors and sociologists. The definition of syphilis as given by Marshall is, that it is "a contagious disease, chronic in evolution, intermittent in manifes- tations, and indefinite in duration, caused by a specific microbe." 8o Plain Facts About a Great Evil Syphilis is hereditary and can be transmit- ted to the oflfspring, being, as Marshall ex- presses it, "the hereditary disease par excel- lence." Syphilis is not so prevalent as gonor- rhoea, which is contracted by 80 per cent, of men, but complete statistics are unavailable, and it is possible that as many as 20 per cent, contract it. This ailment being fiercely conta- gious, a syphilitic husband almost certainly infects his wife. The disease passes through three stages — primary, secondary, and tertiary. The aim of a doctor is to prevent the disease reaching the tertiary stage. As the appearance of tertiary symptoms is sometimes delayed for many years he can have no assurance that he has been suc- cessful. It used to be thought that syphilis was con- tagious only in the primary and secondary stages, but the latest opinion is that it is con- tagious even in its tertiary stage. Certainly it can be communicated to the offspring in the The Dangers of Marriage — I 8i tertiary stage, and what may happen is this, that an expectant mother is infected by her un- born child, who, having inherited syphihs from its father, in turn infects its mother. Many syphilitic children fall victims to their disease before birth. If they survive birth then they are a source of contagion to nurse and to mother. In the tertiary stages of syphilis any part of the body may be affected — nose, lips, tongue, throat, lungs, joints, digestive organs, heart, sex organs, eyes, and ears. Above all, the brain, spinal cord, and nervous system are lia- ble to be affected. Inherited syphilis causes mental deficiency, idiocy, malformations of all kinds, and other diseased conditions. That syphilis causes loathsome skin disease is well known. Sometimes it manifests itself in the form of ulcers resembling lupus, but more rapidly destructive in their effect. Ter- rible disfigurement of the face, and especially of the nose, may be caused by syphilis. 82 Plain Facts About a Great Evil Syphilis is an important cause of anaemia, as it acts on the blood by diminishing the number and power of the red blood corpuscles, by di- minishing the proportion of haemoglobin, and by increasing the number of the white corpus- cles. Syphilis is also a very important cause of heart disease. Says Marshall: "Syphilitic disease of the heart is more common than is generally supposed; in fact, syphilis must be regarded as the chief factor in heart disease, apart from rheumatism. It may be insidious in onset and remain latent a considerable time without giving rise to symptoms, and then cause sudden death in persons apparently in the prime of life. True Angina pectoris must in most cases be due to syphilis, since this is the most frequent cause of the disease of the coronary arteries and aorta." "Probably no disease is more productive of arterial degeneration than syphilis," says Mott. The Dangers of Marriage — I 83 The veins and the glands are particularly sub- ject to damage by syphilis. Syphilis sometimes produces trouble resem- bling gastric ulcer and disorders of the stom- ach. Professor Fournier regards inherited syphilis as likely to constitute a favourable soil for the development of appendicitis. There are syphilitic forms of pneumonia and pleurisy. That syphilis is a predisposing cause to tuberculosis is now admitted. The sex organs are naturally very subject to attack by syphilis, and much suffering is en- dured by women on this account. Syphilis is also the chief cause of miscarriage. Its effect in destroying and deforming the next genera- tion is particularly great. Syphilis is now known to be the cause of Bright's disease, diabetes, hysteria, eye trouble, producing blindness. It is also recognised as a predisposing cause of cancer. "If the inclu- sion of sarcoma and carcinoma among the 84 Plain Facts About a Great Evil parasyphilitic affections seem to be transgress- ing the limits of pathological knowledge," says Marshall, "we must admit that no other satisfactory explanation of the origin of ma- lignant tumours has yet been brought for- ward." "Syphilis," says Fournier, "is a veritable poison to the nervous system." It is a cause of paralysis, neuralgia, neuritis. "One of the principal causes of insanity is syphilis," says Marshall. Epilepsy and idiocy are referable to the same cause. These consequences are not only suffered by the persons who wantonly contract syphilis in the course of immoral living. They are suf- fered by innocent wives, and as the Bible tells us, the sins of the fathers are visited in the form of syphilitic maladies upon their children and their children's children. In a future chapter we shall have more to say as to the hereditary aspect of this question, but we may here quote the opinion of Marshall The Dangers of Marriage — I 85 that the generative effects of syphilis are fre- quently transmitted to the third generation, and possibly further, only to die out with even- tual sterility. Thus, apart from the women infected in marriage, there are numbers of women who have inherited from their forbears the terrible legacy of suffering — and there are men who also suffer, though they have learned so little by it that they seek in immoral intercourse new infection, which they in their turn transmit to generations yet to come. The medical profession is constantly discov- ering more about syphilis, and every new dis- covery teaches them to dread it more as one of the worst enemies of the human race. The knowledge we already have, as summed up in the facts given above, bears out the say- ing of a doctor who affirms that syphilis is the principal cause of death occurring before the natural term, and that "If syphilis and gonor- rhoea were eliminated, you would have, from 86 Plain Facts About a Great Evil the medical point of view, almost a new world to deal with." Syphilis and gonorrhoea can be eliminated in two ways. One is that men shall lead chaste lives. If they refuse to do this, then the only other way in which syphilis and gonorrhoea can be exterminated is by exterminating the race it- self. THE DANGERS OF MARRIAGE— II Those who declare war upon sexual disease are apt to direct their whole attention to syphilis, leaving gonorrhoea more or less out of account. Thus the doctors who lately memorialised the Government asked for a Royal Commission to inquire into syphilis, and gonorrhoea they did not mention at all. Con- sidering that, as Neisser says, 70 per cent, of the cases of sexual disease which come under the notice of medical men arc gonorrhoea, the reason why gonorrhoea is thus ignored calls for some explanation. In the old days there was a saying that gon- orrhoea need be medically treated only in one way — with contempt. In the light of pres- ent medical knowledge it is seen that not only because of its greater prevalence, but because of its devastating effect upon its victims, gon- 87 88 Plain Facts About a Great Evil orrhoea is not less terrible than syphilis itself. Speaking of the relative gravity of syphilis and gonorrhoea Prince Morrow, M.D., says: "Modern science has taught us that in view of its extensive prevalence, its conservation of virulence after apparent cure, and its tendency to invade the uterus and annexial organs, with results often dangerous to life and destructive to the reproductive capacity of the woman, gonorrhoea overshadows syphilis in importance as a social peril." Further, comparing the effects of syphilis and gonorrhoea, Dr. Morrow says : "In the case of gonococcic infection, the in- dividual risks the wife is made to incur are much more serious than those following syphilis. The infection may invade the cavity of the uterus and ascend to the annexial or- gans, causing salpingitis, ovaritis, peritonitis, &c., destroying her conceptional capacity and rendering her irrevocably sterile, to say noth- ing of the resulting dangers to life and the The Dangers of Marriage — II 89 frequent necessity of surgical operations to re- move her tubes and ovaries." The author of Gonorrhoea in Women, Pal- mer Findley, M.D., says: "I might further add in support of the statement of Morrow that the risks to the wife are greater in gonorrhoea than in syphilis, that the prospects of cure are better for syphilis." It used to be thought that whereas syphilis was a constitutional disease affecting the organism as a whole, gonorrhoea was a purely local disease, affecting only the sex organs. But the greatest experts are now coming to the conclusion that gonorrhoea, besides being a disease of the sex organs, must also be re- garded as a constitutional malady. A state- ment on this point made by Dr. Prince Mor- row, is as follows : "As the result of modern investigations it may be positively affirmed that the gonococcus is susceptible of being taken up by the blood- vessels and lymphatics, and that it may affect 90 Plain Facts About a Great Evil almost every organ of the body. Experiments have demonstrated its presence not only in the ovaries, tubes, and peritoneal cavity, which it reaches through progressive invasion of the intermediate mucous membranes, but also in the brain and cord, the endocardium, the pleura, the liver." In inquiring into the reasons why this great plague of gonorrhoea is too lightly regarded, it is impossible to reject the belief that one reason is to be found in the greater severity with which gonorrhoea attacks women as com- pared with men. Gonorrhoea is in fact the great curse of women, and is the cause of most of the special ailments from which they suf- fer. Owing to the ravages that gonorrhoea works upon women, womanhood itself has almost come to be looked upon as a disease. Women have always wondered why mater- nity and their sex life as a whole should, for so many of them, be indistinguishable from dis- The Dangers of Marriage — II 91 ease. If these are natural functions, why should they be attended by so much illness and pain? Sexual disease is at the bottom of this mystery. Syphilis inherited and acquired is partly responsible for women's suffering, but gonorrhoea plays by far the bigger part. There are medical authorities who believe that of cases of "women's diseases" as many as 90 per cent, or even 95 per cent, are due to gonorrhoea. As one of these authorities says, "The more the disease is studied and the greater the improvement in bacteriology, the higher is to be found the percentage." Even the health of unmarried women is af- fected as the result of the prevalence of sexual disease. Another point to be remembered is that, gonorrhoea being highly contagious, many girl children contract it from their mother, and one eminent doctor suggests that this gonor- rhoea! infection in infancy is responsible for suffering in later life. Inherited syphilis, too. 92 Plain Facts About a Great Evil is responsible for many cases of weak and dis- eased sex organs. There is yet another reason which we sus- pect is keeping the doctors silent on the sub- ject of gonorrhoea, and this is that the problem is so awful in its magnitude and in its character that they shrink from admitting its existence. The fact is that this is an evil absolutely in- curable save by one means, namely, the chas- tity of men — the observance by men of the same moral standard as that accepted by virtu- ous women. This the medical profession can advise but do not feel themselves able to en- force. The only people who dare face this evil of gonorrhoea and the only people who can over- throw it are women. When women acquire the necessary influence, political and social, they will have it in their power to convince men that to live cleanly or to be cast out from the society of decent women are the alternatives open to them. The Dangers of Marriage — II 93 As we have said, the doctors are appalled by the problem which gonorrhoea presents, and well they may be. To begin with, there is, as we have repeat- edly shown by quotations from the greatest authorities, no disease of the adult male popu- lation which approaches gonorrhoea in its prevalence — from 75 to 80 per cent, of men (and some say more than this) being infected by it before marriage. So much for the ex- tent of the evil. Now as to the possibility of cure. There is perhaps no disease so difficult to cure. To speak of cure, in the strict sense of the word, is indeed impossible. And when, as so very often happens, a man has, after a first attack of the disease, again exposed himself to infection and has become reinfected, the case is serious indeed. A man who has contracted gonorrhoea may after medical treatment show no further symp- toms, but that is no proof that he is cured. 94 Plain Facts About a Great Evil Palmer Findley says that he has repeatedly demonstrated the presence of the gonococcus in the urethra when there was no possible se- cretion. To believe that the disease is termi- nated when its symptomatic discharge has disappeared is, he says, "a delusion," and he adds: "Now we are all but ready to say that Noeg- garath was right when he said the gonococcus can exist in the tissues throughout the lifetime in the individual, and at any time, under fa- vourable influences, the infection may light upon what appears to be a new and acute infec- tion, or may transmit a virulent infection with- out itself becoming manifest." A very important statement made by this same authority is as follows: "Individuals are observed to infect others, yet apparently are themselves immune to in- fection. The explanation lies in the presence of a gonorrhoeal infection in the absence of all the clinical signs. In the first individual the The Dangers of Marriage — II 95 gonococcus had little virulence, but when transmitted to sterile tissues it assumed an ac- tive role." From this statement it will be seen that a man who is apparently long cured may infect his wife, who will then suffer from gonorrhoea in an acute form, owing to the very fact that she has until then been healthy and therefore presents virgin soil upon which the deadly gonococcus can flourish. The truth is that a man who by immoral in- tercourse exposes himself to infection must act on the assumption that he will infect himself for life, and that by so infecting himself he is rendering himself unfit for marriage. As James Foster Scott, M.D., says : "No individ- ual who expects ever to marry has any right to indulge in sexual impurity." To the frequency with which wives are in- fected in marriage we referred in the last chapter. We showed that, according to Noeggarath, three out of five married women 96 Plain Facts About a Great Evil suffer from gonorrhoea. We quoted the opinion expressed by another authority that every pregnant woman should be examined for sign of gonorrhcEa. Yet another doctor says that he has found more than 25 per cent, of expectant mothers suffering from this disease. The speciaHst, Ricord, beHeved that 90 per cent, of women marrying men who had con- tracted gonorrhoea became themselves infected with the disease either in an acute or latent form. Gonorrhoea in women does terrible mischief. It is a cause of peritonitis. It gives rise also to disease of the bladder and kidneys. It may cause gonorrhoeal rheumatism and gonorrhoeal affections of the heart. It is, however, the sex organs that are pri- marily open to attack by gonorrhoea. The re- sults of such attack vary in different persons, and range from poor health and debility to very serious disease, necessitating surgical opera- tion. Gonorrhoea is a potent cause of sterility The Dangers of Marriage— II 97 and miscarriage. It is held by some doctors that the abortive influence of gonorrhoea is as pronounced as that of syphiHs. Some tumours are due also to gonorrhoea. Many cases of puerperal fever are attribu- table to gonorrhoea. Says Palmer Findley: "Every careful observer of obstetric practice of large experience is keenly aware of the frightful prevalence of gonorrhoea! puerperal infections." Pregnancy and child-birth have, the medical authorities tell us, a most important effect on the course of gonorrhoeal infection. A woman who has been infected may suffer com- paratively little until she is about to become a mother, and then and more especially at the time of child-birth and after it the disease de- velops. and spreads with alarming rapidity. A great deal of suffering experienced by women before and at the birth of their children must be due to gonorrhoea. The following quotation from James Foster 98 Plain Facts About a Great Evil Scott, M. D., is instructive. He says: "In women gonorrhoea not only tends to become chronic and to invade the internal sexual or- gans with destructive changes, but with each occurrence of menstruation there is also a like- lihood of its renewed activity and further spread; and especially does danger threaten if she become pregnant — the result not show- ing fully until some weeks after the full-time labour or miscarriage." The symptoms of gonorrhoea which medical writers describe are only too familiar to thou- sands of women. Valentine, an American doctor, says: "How dismal is the history of many a young woman who marries with all the accompani- ments of a wedding celebration. From the husband's latent gonorrhoea many of them con- tract conditions which alter their lives and even their characters. They suffer from back- ache, irregular and painful menstruation, urinary disorders, localised peritonitis, loss of The Dangers of Marriage — II 99 their healthful beauty, lassitude, hysteria, ster- ility, miscarriages, or death." Another doctor says: "The chronic or creeping form of gonor- rhoea in women demands a considerable amount of attention. A healthy young woman marries, and in about a year after her marriage she finds that her health is very much impaired. Before marriage she was full of health and spirits, was buoyant and active, but she now feels weak, depressed, and irritable, and has vague pains in her body. Formerly her periods were painless and regular. Now they are painful and variable. . . . This is a typical case. The symptoms and signs of the disease may, howevei", vary greatly from mere vague discomfort and slight menstrual de- rangement to the most distressing disturb- ances." The following words taken from the writ- ings of another eminent physician are impress- ive. He says: loo Plain Facts About a Great Evil "It is common to hear women who con- stantly suffer from uterine torture employ such words as these: 'When I was a girl I was quite well. It is only since my marriage that I have become ill.' And every day this confi- dence, this plaintive refrain, saddens the gyne- cologist. It is continual and inexorable. From the discoloured and suffering faces we may guess a whole past of debility, and the origin is always marriage. The husbands have a quiet conscience. They go about their business, or to the clubs, create fresh pleasure or new relations for themselves, and desert the mournful marriage bed. They can reckon on sympathy, for who does not pity them for hav- ing married wives with such bad health." Enough has surely been said to prove the dangers of marriage; to show the injury done to women by the low standards and immoral conduct prevalent amongst men. What a cruel mockery it is that men have alleged the very weakness of which their be- The Dangers of Marriage — II loi haviour is the cause as a reason why women should be condemned to political inferiority! And what a prospect of emancipation from suffering and illness is opened to women by the medical facts that we lay before them! For these facts show that it is not Nature that has doomed women to suflFering, to illness. These evils are preventable, and now that women have the knowledge so long denied them, they can consider how to protect them- selves from foul infectious diseases. THE DECLINE OF THE BIRTH-RATE The birth-rate is declining. Bishops, men sociologists and others are bewailing the fact. Of course, they blame the women. That, men have done since Adam. They seem to forget that the question of how many children shall be born is one for women to decide, since it is they who have to pay the price of these new lives. Quite apart from that, there is another sense in which women are responsible for the falling birth-rate, and so far as women are concerned it will fall lower still — not only the birth-rate but the marriage-rate as well. Marriage becomes increasingly distasteful to intelligent women — ^^not motherhood, but marriage. There are numbers of women who long for children, but are not satisfied with the marriage laws nor with men's standards of husbandhood and fatherhood. 102 The Decline of the Birth-Bate 103 In the first place, the position to which the law relegates a wife is intolerable to self-re- specting women. By law, a wife is not the mother of her own child, and her wishes con- cerning the child may be, except in very ex- treme cases, entirely over-ridden, especially where religion and education are concerned. The English law compels a wife to submit to persistent and degrading immorality on the part of a husband, though one single act of unfaithfulness on her part entitles him to di- vorce her. If she should wish to take the law into her own hands and leave a husband who insults her and probably infects her with dis- ease by frequenting houses of ill-fame, her hus- band can force her into submission by keeping her children, so that if she leaves him she must also leave them. Women who know what is the moral stand- ard of those who describe themselves as the "average man," and what is the consequence of that standard where themselves and their I04 Plain Facts About a Great Evil children are concerned, may well abstain from marriage ! The new realisation by women of the appal- ling prevalence of sexual disease, and the ghastly frequency with which women are in- fected by their husbands, will inevitably check marriage. Love is stronger than death, the saying goes. But love will not be found stronger than dis- ease, when that disease is caused by vice, which blasphemes love and desecrates love. There can be no mating between the spirit- ually developed women of this new day and men who in thought or conduct with regard to sex matters are their inferiors. Therefore the birth-rate will fall lower yet. For severely practical, common-sensible, sanitary reasons women are chary of marriage. When the best-informed and most experienced medical men say that the vast majority of men expose themselves before marriage to sexual disease, and that only an "insignificant minor- The Decline of the Birth-Bate 105 ity," as one authority puts it — 25 per cent, at most — escape infection; when these medical authorities further say that sexual disease is difficult, if not impossible, to cure, healthy women naturally hesitate to marry. Mr. Punch's "advice to those about to marry — Don't!" has a true and terrible application to the facts of the case. Perhaps our childless and celibate Bishops may say that it is a woman's duty, faced by the prospect, if she marries, of being infected by her husband, to sacrifice herself and to marry all the same. They must not be surprised if such advice falls upon deaf ears. "Sacrifice yourself, sacrifice yourself," is a cry that has lost its power over women. Why should women sacrifice themselves to no purpose save that of losing their health and happiness? Now that women have learnt to think for them- selves, they discover that woman, in sacrificing herself, sacrifices the race. If the Bishops, and the whole pack of men io6 Plain Facts About a Great Evil who delight in advising, lecturing, and preach- ing to women, would exhort the members of their own sex to some sacrifice of their baser impulses, it would be better for the race, better for women, and better even for men. Women admit, therefore, that the falling birth-rate is, and will continue to be, in part due to their own deliberate intention. But it is due also in large part to causes for which women are in no way responsible. A great many women are, through no fault of their own, incapable of becoming mothers. The reason of this is that they have been infected by venereal disease, which is the great foe to the reproduction of the race. The two forms of venereal disease operate in different ways. Gonorrhoea causes inabil- ity to bear any child at all, or, in some cases, inability to bear more than one. It also de- stroys the capacity for fatherhood, although this is a point which is very often wilfully ig- The Decline of the Birth-Bate 107 nored by those who delight to criticise women. It is declared by Dr. Prince Morrow that men are ultimately responsible for from 50 to 75 per cent, of sterile marriages — that in 20 to 25 per cent, of such cases the disease has de- stroyed the husband's capacity for fatherhood, and in the others the husband has infected his wife, and thus robbed her of the power of ma- ternity. Such being the connection between the prob- lem of what is called "race suicide" and the infection of women in marriage, we realise how unjustly women have suffered in the past from self-blame, and the blame of others, for failure to bring children into the world. A childless woman used to be taught that she had failed in her life's mission. If she had known the facts that women know to-day they might have taught her that she was not herself to blame. A quotation from a doctor is very much to the point here. He says : io8 Plain Facts About a Great Evil "In the martyrology of women there is no more pathetic sight than the