Part 81

“I didn’t suppose that it was ever fatal,” said Clyde.

“Oh, yes. I’ve seen deaths in hospitals, of the most agonizing’ kind. But it is by virtue of its byproducts, so to speak, that gonorrhoea is most injurious and is really more baneful to the race than syphilis. The organism which causes it is in a high degree destructive to the eyes. Newborn infants are very frequently infected in this way by gonorrhoeal mothers. Probably a quarter of all permanent blindness in this country is caused by gonorrhoea. The effect of the disease upon women is disastrous. Half of all abdominal operations on married women, excluding appendicitis, are the results of gonorrhoeal infection from their husbands. A large proportion of sterility arises from this cause. A large proportion of the wives of men in whom the infection has not been wholly eradicated pay the penalty in permanently undermined health. And yet the superstition endures that ‘it’s no worse than a bad cold.’”

“There is no such superstition about syphilis, at least,” remarked Clyde.

“No. The very name is a portent of terror, and it is well that it should be so. The consequence is that the man who finds himself afflicted takes no chances, as a rule. He goes straight to the best physician he can find, and obeys orders under terror of his life. Thus and thus only, he often is cured. Terrible as syphilis is, there is this redeeming feature: we can tell pretty accurately when the organism which causes it is eliminated. Years after the disease itself is cured, however, the victim may be stricken down by the most terrible form of paralysis, resulting from it.”

“Isn’t the Ehrlich treatment regarded as a sure cure?” asked Mrs. Sharpless.

“No cure is sure. Salvarsan, skillfully administered, is as near a specific as any known form of treatment. But we don’t know whether it has any effect at all upon locomotor ataxia or general paralysis, the after effects, which may destroy the patient fifteen or twenty years after the actual disease has been cured. All locomotor ataxia and all general paralysis come from syphilis. And these diseases are not only incurable, but are as nearly a hell on earth as poor humanity is ever called upon to endure. Of course, you know that a man who is base enough to marry with syphilis dooms his children. Fortunately seventy-five or eighty per cent of the offspring of such marriages die in infancy or early childhood. The rest grow up deficient in mind or body or both. Upwards of ten per cent of all insanity is syphilitic in its origin.

“Both venereal diseases are terribly contagious. Innocence is no protection. Syphilis may be contracted from a drinking-cup or eating-utensil, or from the lips of an infected person having an open sore on the mouth. Gonorrhoea is spread by towels, by bathtubs, or from contaminated toilets. No person, however careful, is immune from either of the ‘red plagues.’ And yet the public is just beginning to be educated to the peril.”

“Why wouldn’t that be a good topic for the Woman’s Club to discuss?” asked Grandma Sharpless.

“Splendid!” said Dr. Strong. “That is, if they would allow you to talk about it.”

“Allow me!” The old lady’s firm chin tilted up sharply. “Who’s going to put the ban of silence on me?”

“Nobody, I dare say, if you make up your mind to speak,” replied Dr. Strong, smiling. “But some will probably try. Would you believe that, only a short time since, a professor of hygiene in one of our leading universities had to abandon a course of lectures to the students because the wives of the faculty and trustees objected to his including venereal diseases in his course? And a well-known lecturer, who had been invited to speak on health protection before a list of colleges, suffered the indignity of having the invitation withdrawn because he insisted that he could not cover the ground without warning his hearers against the twin pestilences of vice.”

“Are the colleges so greatly in need of that sort of warning?” asked Mrs. Clyde.

“Subsequent records obtained from some of the protesting institutions showed that one third of the students had at some time been infected.”

“I’m glad you’ve told my boy,” said Mrs. Clyde, rising. “I’ll talk to my girls.”

“And I to the women,” said Mrs. Sharpless. “Then I’d better make a list, for both of you, of the literature on the subject which you will find useful,” said the Health Master. “I’ll give it to you later.”

The list of publications on the sex problem and venereal disease recommended by the Health Master to the Clyde family was as follows:— Published by the California Social Hygiene Society, Room 256, U.S. Custom House, San Francisco, Calif.: The Four Sex Lies, When and How to Tell the Children, A Plain Talk with Girls about their Health and Physical Development. Published by the Detroit Society for Sex Hygiene, Wayne Co. Medical Society Building, Detroit, Mich.: To the Girl who does not Know, A Plain Talk with Boys. Published by the Chicago Society of Social Hygiene, 305 Reliance Building, Chicago, Ill: Self Protection, Family Protection, Community Protection. Published by the Maryland Society for Social Hygiene, 15 East Pleasant Street, Baltimore, Md.: The So- Called Sexual Necessity in Man, The Venereal Diseases. Published by the American Federation for Sex Hygiene, 105 West 40th St., N.Y. City: List of Publications of the Constituent Societies, The Teaching of Sex Hygiene, Sex Instruction as a Phase of Social Education. Published by the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis: The Sex Problem, Health and the Hygiene of Sex.

For a time after the women had left, the two men sat silent.

“Strong,” said Mr. Clyde presently, “who is Bartley Starr’s physician?”

“Dr. Emery.”

“Why didn’t he warn him not to marry?”

“He did. He positively forbade it.”

“And Starr married that young girl in the face of that prohibition?”

“He thought he was cured. Dr. Emery couldn’t say positively that he wasn’t. He could only beg him to wait another year. Starr hadn’t the courage—or the principle; he feared scandal if he postponed the wedding. So he disregarded the warning and now the scandal is upon him with tenfold weight.”

“Isn’t there any law for such cases?”

“Not in this state. Indiana requires that parties to a marriage swear to their freedom from venereal disease and certain other ailments. Other states have followed suit. Every state ought to.”

“Why didn’t Dr. Emery go to the girl’s father, then?”

“Because of our damnable law,” returned the Health Master with a sudden and rare access of bitterness.

“You mean that the law forbids?”