SOCIAL DISEASES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3057, 19 April 1917, Page 3

SOCIAL DISEASES

LECTURE BY DR. PLATTS-MILLS The Concert Chamber of <the Town Hall was filled with a very representative gathering of women last evening when Dr. Platts-Mills, at the request of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board gave a lecture upon social diseases. This lecture is a 1 part of the campaign which has been inaugurated by the Minister of Public Health and the Hospital Boards of the Dominion for the purpose of fighting this scourge that ,is responsible for wreaking such terrible havoc with the lives of women and'children. • Mrs. M'Vicar, as a representative of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, introduced Dr. Platts-Mills to her au-. dience.

In beginning her lecture Dr. PlattsMills asked her audience to go .with her, in imagination, into any one of the large general hospitals of any large city. First of all they would enter the women's surgical ward,- and there they would he told that as fast as the beds. emptied they were filled again with women patients. Many of them were there for terrible operations such as would remove from them for ever every possibility of their having children. Why was that? The answer was to be found in a statement of Dr. Batchelor, of Dunedin, that 80 out of 100 of these abdominal operations of women were due to venereal diseases innocently acquired on their • part. Other doctors had said 50 out of 100, but even if that latter statement were true, • women had something to learn— something to get rid of. The next place they would visit would be the children's ward. Here were children to be seen from the tiniest mites to those of some years of age. In one bed .was & baby of only three weeks' old, with, a running dischargo from the eyes, one'of which , was covered with a bandage, and the other was also shielded. This baby was suffering from ophthalmia of the newlyborn. In - one" eye the sight was entirely lost, and it would only be by a miracle that it would he saved in the other. _ This was the cause of most of the blindness of the world, and -was the only part of venereal disease that was notifiable. It was highly infectious. In another bed was a little baby only a fortnight old,. covered with soros, doomed before its . birth. In every other way, form, plumpness and .intelligence, it was beautiful,, but the evil of syphilis had blighted its baby promise. It might recover or it might get worse, possibly go into convulsions. Further down the ward was another baby that did not look like a baby at all. It was the epitome of tragedy, and was suffering from a wasting-dis-east duo, to syphilis. It was quite true that babies might suffer from a wasting disease, due to alcoholism on the part of its parents, or to had feeding, but it was not so awful a thing as was this form of dis'ease. Bad as were these bodily effects they were not comparable to the effects of venereal diseases upon the mentality of children, as pointed out by the speaker. Fifty per oent. of mentally deficient cases were due to syphilis, and forty to alcohol; Looking at it only from a material point of view it was necessary to realise what an extraordinary saving to the nation and its finances would be made by getting rid of these evils. As a matter of fact it was very difficult to separate these cases and say how many were result of drink and how many of immorality. Tho two causes were so greatly intertwined. Women we're directly concerned in these matters, contended Dr. PlattsMills. For women, health, was turned into ill-health, happiness into misery, and family life sometimes utterly destroyed, while the very life of the nation was threatened. If ever any subject shouU. appeal to tho natural -instincts of women and their intelligence it was this. It was their duty to know all about it, bo that they might protect themselves and others. Once women understood what a menace these diseases were to themselves, their happiness,' their health, and their children, they would not rest until something was done to rid the world of such a curse. The double standard of morality, one for men and another for women, was responsible for much. Gonorrhea, which was thought: of so lightly by some men, was a very infectious disease, and within the last five years doctors and bacteriologists had shown that the ravages of this disease were almost unable to be told. It wouldl lie quiescent for years, and then might be the cause of terrible abdominal operations on the wife of a man who had once been infected. It was tho cinse of nearly all of these operations and of sterility. In the case of a very large percentage of women who had no children it would he found that they were married to men who had had gonorrhea at some time or another of their lives. It was ako the chief cause of blindness in children. I

Ways'in which this disease might be innocently' acquired were enumerated by the speaker—through drinking, vessels, spoons, forks, knives, bed linen, etc. It was considered a crime for Ja person to rim the risk of spreading scarlet fever , and other infectious diseases, hut no word had! -been said in regard to this terrible menace. Syphilis was also highly infectious, but its freatest horror was that it was inerited by children, many being infected before birth. Of' nothing was it more truly said-than that "tie sina of the father are visited upon the children," even to the third or the fourth generation, when death sometimes puts a merciful end to the outcome of human folly arid wickedness, an outcome that fills our institutions with imbecility, blindness, deformity, and other terrible afflictions. Such were the ravages of venereal diseases—diseases that were not confined to one class, but to evory class,- from king to pauper. _ > ' In dealing with those evils the attitude of society tpwardß their victim had. to be altered. Chastity had to be demanded of men as well as of"women.; health and clean living had to be preferred before a good balance in the bank when marriage was being considered, and above all, self-control had to be taught and practised. Men and women might, and would, suffer from lack of control, hut, never from selfcontrol. Two ways of combating these socia levils were, first of all, by treatment, and that in its early stages, and, secondly, by education. Gonorrhea could be cured if taken in its early stage, but delav was fatal. Syphilis in its first and second stages could also he cured, but never in the third stage. Free clinics should be established, where treatment and instruction would be giveiii and no unnecessary questions asked. As regards education, women should be taught the nature of these diseasos, their extent, and causes, and itic-y 6hould be induced to take part in the great movement now going on in the worldl to fight these diseased. A series of lantern slides showing how the children are paying for the sins of their parents wore shown.