These
two diseases are syphilis and gonorrhoea. Both these diseases are very
serious, often terrible, in their effects on the individual attacked,
and both liable to be poisonous to the race. There has long been a
popular notion that, while syphilis is indeed an awful disease,
gonorrhoea may be accepted with a light heart. That, we now know, is a
grave mistake. Gonorrhoea may seem trivial at the outset, but its
results, especially for a woman and her children (when it allows her to
have any), are anything but trivial; while its greater frequency, and
the indifference with which it is regarded, still further increase its
dangers.
About the serious nature of syphilis there is no doubt. It is a
comparatively modern disease, not clearly known in Europe before the
discovery of America at the end of the fifteenth century, and by some
authorities[2] to-day supposed to have been imported from America. But
it soon ravaged the whole of our world, and has continued to do so ever
since. During recent years it has perhaps shown a slight tendency to
decrease, though nothing to what could be achieved by systematic
methods; but its evils are still sufficiently alarming. Exactly how
common it is cannot be ascertained with certainty. At least 10 per
cent., probably more, of the population in our large cities have been
infected by syphilis, some before birth. In 1912 for an average strength
of 120,000 men in the English Navy, nearly 300,000 days were lost as a
result of venereal disease, while among 100,000 soldiers in the Home
Army for the same year, an average of nearly 600 men were constantly
sick from the same cause.
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