Safe Marriage: A Return to SanityRout, Ettie Annie
Science
Safe Marriage: A Return to Sanity
Rout, Ettie Annie
Birth control; Contraception
"I suppose my instinct is rather more in the moral direction than
many people, but I recognise, as you will see from these articles
(published by _Lancet_), that it is by direct prophylaxis, and
direct prophylaxis alone that we are likely to get rid of this
abomination. I should never in any campaign exclude all the
additional aids--proper soldiers' clubs, such as I have established
in Egypt, the influence of decent women, and the one hundred and
one factors that go to make a decent and reputable life; but you
have, in the long run, to recognise the fact that a percentage of
men are certain to seek women who are prepared to cater for them.
If the steps indicated are taken, the proof is absolute that the
disease can be practically extirpated and without great difficulty.
The failure of prophylaxis depends on two factors--firstly, it
requires someone charged with responsibility, earnestness and high
character to explain to men precisely what they are doing and what
it means; and secondly, prophylaxis is of very little use to
drunken men. My experience has been that when these precautions are
properly used venereal disease may disappear."
That proved to be exactly my own experience in the army. Failures in the
army were due to the absence of proper personal instruction of the men and
the laxity of control, and these conditions can always be assumed to exist
in any army having a high v.d. infection rate.--E.A.R.]
Nevertheless, the people who would put sacerdotalism before science, and
the still meaner minds who would substitute legality for morality, raised
storms of objection to my work, in the midst of which came a few strong,
clear calls of understanding and encouragement.
One Scotch padre wrote me in 1918:--
"It is a magnificent adventure for a woman to go practically alone
on the very edge of things, and I salute you, and congratulate you,
and wish you _God-speed_."
An old family doctor, then with a colonial ambulance, wrote:--
"Many women ... will owe their health and happiness to you, and not
a few will be indebted to you for their lives."
The editor of the Sydney _Bulletin_ (Australia) was continually publishing
helpful articles and paragraphs--after my letters and articles were
censored;[M] and from Dr. W.H. Symes, of Christchurch, New Zealand, I
heard by personal correspondence steadily and wisely all through the war.
Much later came the following tribute, in a most valuable book written by
Sir Archdall Reid and Sir Bryan Donkin ("Prevention of Venereal Disease,"
published by William Heinemann (Medical Books) Limited)[N]:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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