Commercialized Prostitution in New York CityKneeland, George J. (George Jackson)
History
Commercialized Prostitution in New York City
Kneeland, George J. (George Jackson)
Prostitution -- New York (State) -- New York
During the year 1911, 522,722 cases of all kinds were treated in 17
dispensaries in New York City; 15,781, or 3.01 percent of these cases,
were venereally affected. The hospitals of the city possess few beds for
the reception of venereal patients; nevertheless, 5,380 persons--6.33 per
cent of all cases treated in 13 different hospitals--were venereally
affected, about two-thirds male, one-third female. These infections occur
at any time from the first to the seventieth year,--the period of greatest
frequency being between 16 and 30 years of age: between 16 and 20, 796
were males and 369 females; between 21 and 25, 1,182 and 454,
respectively; between 26 and 30, 692 and 268.
For several reasons these figures are far from suggesting the actual
extent of venereal infection,--in the first place, because, as above
stated, the hospitals receive but a fraction of the sufferers; in the
second, because accurate diagnosis has only recently become feasible. The
percentages increase heavily as soon as the more delicate and reliable
tests devised by Wassermann and others are applied. For example, 308
adults were admitted to the medical wards of a certain New York hospital
during the months of January, February, and March, 1913; though the
Wassermann test for syphilis was made in the case of only 166 of these,
38, _i. e._, 23 percent of those examined, gave positive results; this is
equivalent to 12.3 percent of the entire 308. Had the test been applied to
all adults admitted, undoubtedly the ratio of syphilitic infection would
have been higher still. As a matter of fact, the test as usually performed
does not disclose all cases of infection; so that the prevalence of
disease is actually greater than the tests indicate.
The civil state of the patients in the cases first mentioned is shown in
the following table:
Males Females
single married widowers single married widows
640 2950 57 589 802 90
From the standpoint of occupation, every social class is
represented,--necessarily so, inasmuch as every social class figures in
the phenomena of prostitution. The occupations given by male patients were
as follows: professional, 52; clerical and official, 307; mercantile and
trading, 250; public entertainment, 120; personal service, police and
military, 186; laboring and servant, 1,181; manufacturing and mechanical
industry, 932; agricultural, transportation, and other outdoor
employments, 645; no occupations, 58; classified as unknown, 8; children,
11; congenital origin, 31; schoolboys, 10; students, 10. The occupations
of female patients are as follows: professional, 46; domestic and
personal, 1,144; trade and transportation, 109; manufacturing and
mechanical, 86; no occupations, 72; unknown, 9; schoolgirls, 21; children,
76.
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