A manual of venereal diseases / by officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of venereal diseases / by officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    constantly sick from syphilis is remarkable, and not easy to account for. Probably there are a multiplicity of causes, but I have little doubt that increased temperance is by far the most important of all. In that case it may be said that the curves of syphilis, and gonorrhoea, should have maintained a more exact parallelism, since an indirect influence like temperance should affect both members of the group equally if at all. I offer the following explanation of this anomaly, as at least a possible one. Syphilis is probably in most cases contracted from the more degraded class of prostitutes, with whom an ordinarily self-respecting man does not consort when sober. The more respectable class of woman, when affected by this disease, will either seek treatment, or, frightened by her illness, abstain from further promiscuous intercourse. Gonorrhoea, being in its earlier stages more painful, leads both classes of women to seek immediate treat- ment, which few of them probably persevere in beyond the stage of apparent cure. A woman of either class infected by this disease therefore will for a short time abstain from promiscuous intercourse, but once the initial severe symptoms are over will return to her former mode of life. If this explanation were the true one we would expect