The Third Great Plague: A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday PeopleStokes, John H. (John Hinchman)
History
The Third Great Plague: A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People
Stokes, John H. (John Hinchman)
Syphilis
that privacy is one of the details which has an attraction that cannot
be ignored.
+Compulsory Treatment.+--Compulsory provisions in the law form the
third debatable feature of a modern program against syphilis. The
Scandinavian countries have adopted it, and in them a patient who does
not take treatment can be made to do so. If he is in a contagious
condition, he can be committed to a hospital for treatment. If he
infects another, knowing himself to have a venereal disease, he is
subject, not to fine, but to a long term of imprisonment. The West
Australian law is even more efficient than the Scandinavian in the vigor
with which it supplies teeth for the bite. The penalties for violations
of its provisions are so heavy as to most effectually discourage
would-be irresponsibles. At the other end of the scale we find Great
Britain relying thus far solely upon the provision of adequate
treatment, and trusting to the enlightenment of patients and the
education of public sentiment to induce them to continue treatment until
cured. Italy has, in the same way, left the matter to the judgment of
the patient. The Medical Association of Munich, Germany, in a recent
study has subscribed to compulsory treatment along the same lines as the
West Australia act, although thus far enforcement has been confined to
military districts. The program for disbanding of the German army after
the war, however, includes, under Blaschko's proposals, compulsion and
surveillance carried to the finest details. A conservative summary of
the situation seems to justify the belief that measures of compulsion
will ultimately form an essential part of a fully developed legal code
for the control of syphilis. The reasons for this belief have been
extensively reviewed in the discussion of the nature of the disease
itself (pages 104-105). On the whole, however, the method of Great
Britain in looking first to the provision for adequate diagnosis and
treatment, and then to the question as to who will not avail himself of
it, is a logical mode of attacking the question, and as it develops
public sentiment in its favor, will also pave the way for a sentiment
which will stand back of compulsion if need be, and save it from being a
dead letter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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