It is difficult to enumerate all the infirmities which syphilis in the parents may transmit to the children. Syphilis often renders marriage sterile. It is more frequent in men than in women, because the number of prostitutes is small compared with the number of men who go with them; a single prostitute may contaminate a whole regiment. On their part, the clients of prostitutes convey gonorrhea and syphilis to their wives, thus spreading in society this abominable plague and all the evils resulting from it. =Soft Chancre.=--The third kind of venereal disease is the soft chancre, thus called in distinction to hard chancre, which is the primary sore of syphilis. Soft chancre is the least dangerous and the least common of the three diseases. It consists of an ulcer which remains localized to the genital organs (unless it is complicated with syphilis, which is frequent). The ulcerated parts are destroyed, but the sore heals generally without trouble. Venereal diseases constitute one of the worst satellites of the sexual appetite. If men were not so ignorant and careless, it would be on the whole easy to avoid them and cause their gradual disappearance. One of the most absurd and infamous organizations which can be imagined is that of the State regulation of prostitution which, under the pretext of hygiene, compels prostitutes to be registered by the police or to live in brothels. They then undergo regular medical examination, the object of which is to prevent those who are diseased from practicing their trade, and compel them to be treated in hospital. We shall see later on that this system absolutely fails in its object, for the simple reason that the treatment of venereal diseases is by no means the panacea which many people imagine. The first attack of gonorrhea in man is very often spontaneously cured, while unskillful treatment often aggravates it. The relapses of this disease, on the other hand, especially in their chronic form, often resist all kinds of treatment and sometimes become incurable. The gonococci become hidden in the folds of the deep parts of the mucous membrane, both in men and women, and cannot all be destroyed. With regard to syphilis, mercurial treatment, although remarkable in its immediate effect, requires prolonged administration. And it is by such means that it is proposed to make prostitutes clean! There is only one radical cure for venereal diseases; that is not to contract them! However, this does not prevent us from recommending all those who are affected with them to seek immediate treatment by a skilled specialist.