SECRET DISEASE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 286, 29 August 1919, Page 3

SECRET DISEASE

SHOULD BE MADE NOTIFIABLE. At the AVellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board's meeting yesterday the following resolution was fnrwardod by the Waikato Board for endorsement:— "That, in view of tho most disquieting information in its possession regarding the great increase recently in the number of cases of syphilis in this Dominion, and regarding, as we do, with tho liveliest concern and apprehension, the increased menace thereby creuicd to the welfare not only of the community of to-day, but of generations unborn,. this meeting would strongly urge the Minister of Health to issue a public note of warning to nil parents, impressing on them, in the strongest terms possible, their moral duty to their own families in particular, and to tho State in general, not to sanction tho marriage of their eons or daughters unless both the contracting parties' possess doctors' certificates that they are free from an inherited or transmissible disease. Further, the board confidently hopes that your warning will b'j merely the forerunner of legislation during ihe next session of Parliament, making it compulsory for the contracting parties in a marriage to produco health certificates before a license Iμ issued to them. Also, that all cases of venereal disease bo made compulsorily notifiable." The reply sent to tho AVaikato Board stated that the board agreed tiiat tho action proposed was desirable, but hardly workable. Without question all cases of venereal disease should bo made coinpulsorily notifiable.