Several months ago, Dr. Paul B. Brooks of Norwich, at a meeting of a district branch of The New York State Medical Society presented a paper on the Relation of the General Practitioner to the Prevalence of Veneral Diseases. In it he declared that the medical profession possessed information which, if frankly revealed, would bring about widespread reforms. Through their inactivity, he said, doctors are more responsible than any other class of citizens for the prevalence of veneral diseases. He asserted that a large percentage of infections of this class could be traced, directly or indirectly, to the public prostitute; that prostitution is, in no sense, a “necessary evil,” and that if “the people demand it,” then the moral sense of “the people” is open to criticism. He believed that the police of any community, large or small, if given power to drive out prostitutes, would be able to protect virtuous women. Shortly after this some eight or ten physicians, assembled for a meeting of the Physician’s Club of Norwich, fell to comparing notes on the prevalence of veneral diseases in the community. The result was startling. Six or seven houses of prostitution, running openly and apparently without restriction, were turning out dozens of men, and even boys of school age, prepared to spread the scourge among innocent women, and through them, to generations unborn. A large number of the inmates of establishments were known to be actually infected. The situation impressed these physicians as being so serious that they determined to call a special meeting of the club and to invite the town and village authorities to confer with them. In the meantime they considered the various possibilities, including intervention by the Board of Health, medical inspection, etc. In the end they decided that there was but one feasible plan—to attempt the elimination of public prostitution or at least all but such as was clandestinely practised. They regarded it as their duty to advise, and demand, if necessary, the removal of the obvious breeding grounds for disease.