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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

measures are required to check its progress. This incongruity would by itself be a sufficient proof of the extent to which, on the one side or the other, evidence must have been vitiated. What, then, shall we say of the incongruity on finding that the first of these statements has recently been repeated by many of the highest medical authorities, as one verified by their experience? Here are some of their testimonies:

The Chairman of the late Government Commission for inquiring into the treatment and prevention of syphilis, Mr. Skey, Consulting-Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, gave evidence before a House of Lords Committee. Referring to an article expressing the views of the Association for promoting the extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts, he said it was—

"largely overcharged," and "colored too highly.... The disease is by no means so common or universal, I may say, as is represented in that article, .... and I have had an opportunity, since I had the summons to appear here to-day, of communicating with several leading members in the profession at the College of Surgeons, and we are all of the same opinion, that the evil is not so large by any means as it is represented by the Association."

Mr. John Simon, F. R. S., for thirty-five years a hospital surgeon, and now Medical Officer to the Privy Council, writes in his official capacity:

"I have not the least disposition to deny that venereal affections constitute a real and great evil for the community; though I suspect that very exaggerated opinions are current as to their diffusion and malignity."

By the late Prof. Syme it was asserted that—

"It is now fully ascertained that the poison of the present day (true syphilis) does not give rise to the dreadful consequences which have been mentioned, when treated without mercury.... None of the serious effects that used to be so much dreaded ever appear, and even the trivial ones just noticed comparatively seldom present themselves. We must, therefore, conclude either that the virulence of the poison is worn out, or that the effects formerly attributed to it depended on treatment."[1]

The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, which stands far higher than any other medical journal, and is friendly to the Acts as applied to military and naval stations, writes thus:

"The majority of those who have undergone the disease, thus far" (including secondary manifestations), "live as long as they could otherwise have expected to live, and die of diseases with which syphilis has no more to do than the man in the moon."[2] .... "Surely 455 persons suffering from true syphilis in one form or another, in a poor population of 1,500,000" (less than one in 3,000) .... "cannot be held to be a proportion so large as to call for exceptional action on the part of any government."[3]
  1. ↑ "Principles of Surgery." Fifth edition, p. 434.
  2. ↑ British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, January, 1870, p. 103.
  3. ↑ Ibid., p. 106.
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