Physiological science, however, knowing what it knows
regarding food and alcohol, and air and exercise and diet, can readily
demonstrate that the gout from which Mrs. Grundy suffers is also a
penalty for sin; none the less because it is not so hideously
disproportionate, in its measure and in its incidence, to the gravity of
the offence. These moral distinctions between one disease and another
have little or no meaning for medical science, and are more often than
not immoral.
It would be none too easy to show that the medical profession in any
country has yet used its tremendous power in this direction.
Professions, of course, do not move as a whole, and we must not expect
the universal laws of institutions to find an exception here. But though
they do not move, they can be moved. It is when the public has been
educated in the elements of these matters, and has been taught to see
what the consequences of prudery are, that the necessary forces will be
brought into action. Meanwhile, what we call the social evil is almost
entirely left to the efforts made in Rescue Homes and the like. Despite
the judgment of a popular novelist and playwright, it is much more than
doubtful whether Rescue Homes--the only method which Mrs. Grundy will
tolerate--are the best way of dealing with this matter, even if the
people who worked in them had the right kind of outlook upon the matter,
and even if their numbers were indefinitely multiplied.
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