To reply to these questions, especially to the fifth, I discovered that it would be requisite to extend my investigations beyond the limits of the institutions on Blackwell's Island. This idea was communicated to President Townsend, who joined me in appreciating the necessity of such a movement. He also was the means of interesting Mayor Wood and other officers of the city in the investigation as subsequently carried on, while his continued exertions and earnest support aided me generally in the prosecution of the labor, and merit my most sincere and grateful acknowledgments. The steps thus taken are fully detailed in the following letter to the Board of Governors, that letter, or preliminary report, having been called for in connection with the reports from the Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, and from the Resident Physician of Randall's Island, which will be found, _in extenso_, in Chapter XXXVII. of this work:[4] "ISAAC TOWNSEND, Esq., _President of the Board of Governors_. "DEAR SIR,--In reply to your letter asking for answers to certain interrogatories on the subject of prostitution and its diseases, I have to state that I am not prepared to report, nor can I do so for some considerable length of time to come. "Had I confined myself to simply answering the queries propounded as regards the institutions under my medical charge, simply given you the gross numbers, with the percentages of those who have suffered or are now suffering from venereal disease, such reply could have been sent to you long ago. A report of this kind from this department would have been looked upon by the public at large as containing the history of nearly all the prostitution in the city, and particularly would a majority of the public have believed that nineteen twentieths of the disease resulting from prostitution found its home here. Such is not the fact. Great as is the number of prostitutes annually sent here, and enormous as is the number of cases of venereal disease yearly treated here, yet these compose but a small fraction of the sum total actually existing in this city. There are but few more prostitutes on the island than are to be found on the same number of acres in certain portions of the city; and as for the venereal disease, why, gentlemen, the island has the advantage. It is the least dangerous locality.