The Third Great Plague: A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday PeopleStokes, John H. (John Hinchman)
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The Third Great Plague: A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People
Stokes, John H. (John Hinchman)
Syphilis
that in more than rare cases had the risk of syphilis any real power to
control the expression of their desires. Sexual morality is a complex
affair, in which the habit of self-control in many other activities of
life plays an important part. The man or woman who best deserves to be
called clean and honorable and sexually blameless has not become so
through a negative morality and an enlightened selfishness. The man who
does not have bred into him from childhood the instinct to say the
"everlasting no" to his passions will never learn to say it from the
fear of syphilis. Sexual self-control is a habit, not a reasoned-out
affair, and its foundation must rest on the rock bottom of character
and not in the muck of venereal disease.
+The Broader Outlook.+--If, then, it avails nothing in the uplifting of
our morals to treat syphilis as a disgrace, if the disease is
ineffective as a deterrent, and barbarously undiscriminating, inhuman,
and unjust as a punishment, let us in all fairness lay aside the
attitude of mind which has so hindered and defeated our efforts to deal
with it as an arch enemy to human health, happiness, and effectiveness.
In the face of all our harsh traditions it takes a good deal of breadth
of view to look on the disease impersonally, rather than in the light of
one or two contemptible examples of it whom we may happen to know. But,
after all, to think in large terms and with a sympathy that can separate
the sinner from his sin and the sick man from the folly that got the
best of him, is no mean achievement, well worthy of the Samaritan in
contrast with the Levite. To the remaking of the traditional attitude of
harsh, unkindly judgment upon those unfortunate enough to have a
terrible disease, we must look for our soundest hope of progress.
+The Mental States of Syphilitics.+--The mental outlook of the person
with syphilis is in its turn as important a factor in our campaign
against the disease as is that of the person without it. In order to
give some idea of the ways in which this can influence the situation it
may be well to sketch what might be called the four types of mind with
which one has to deal--the conscientious, the average, the
irresponsible, and the morbid. Under the morbid type are included those
persons who, without having syphilis, are in morbid fear of the disease,
or have the fixed belief that they are infected with it, even when they
are not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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