To the Editor, of the, "Norru-Curva Dalny News."
Sir,—For about the six months that the discussion has been running in your © respondence about organized vice, I don't think that the views exchanged have been much outside the one point; whether prostitution should be controlled or not by the police and fought by moral means.
I have just at hand the reports of three meetings on the prophylaxis of venereal disease which have been fostered by the League of Nations and have gathered many of the medical authorities of Europe and some of the United States.
Among the conclusions of those meetings held in Copenhagen, Prague and Paris (1921) even in the countries where legislation favours medical control of prostitution, the general view is that its control is out of date and quite indifferent to both vice and disease. The experience of the 19th century in that way has been quite conclusive: Control and liberty have both failed to eradicate the disease, in fact, control reaches only a very small portion of the community—all the men and most of the women (those indulging in hidden prostitution) escape it and no reliable scheme of control of these has ever been produced Now the 20th century has brought in two new weapons: medical and moral. The time is gone (or should be?) when the word syphilis in nob to be pronounced before ladies and girls. Education of the youth should not only direct them toward high ethics, but tell them of the dangers of vice and about semic physical aspects of marriage. Private or official institutions may be devoted to try to save some girls before they have fallen, or to the salvation of destitute women. All these moral efforts certainly are to be encouraged, but they are only one side of the problem. The key of the fight should be medical The discovery of the germ of syphilis by Schauding in 1905, followed Wassermann's test and the arsenotherapy by Ehrlich, have changed the face of the question and given us, new ways of dealing with it. Besides the medical ways apply also to those innocent and unconscious victin.s: the honest wives and children of infected men.
There should be put into practice special clinics open "at evening hours, free to any applicant, fitted with the most elaborate methods of treatment and giving to the specialists and practitioners the assistance of free bacteriological tests. No compulsory treatment should be advocated; in cases where the same is neglected, persuasion might be of much use. This scheme has been_advanced by Dr. Bavet and Dr. Malvoy, delegates of the Belgian government to the Paris meeting; they claim a favourable experience of more than 10 years, and one of them has prophesied the eradication of syphilis from the country in the very near future. I am, eto.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.