VENEREAL DISEASES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1557, 30 May 1916, Page 3

VENEREAL DISEASES

STARTLING STATEMENT BY A

DUNEDIN DOCTOR

On Wednesday, an Otago Daily Times reporter asked a loading Dunedin doctor to express an opinion whether venereal diseases were more prevalent in Dunedin than usual. The information obtained from the doctor was of a rather startling nature. He said he was distinctly of the opinion that there was an increase in such diseases, no doubt due to contagion contracted from some of the returned soldiers, and also from soldiers who had contracted tlie disease while in the camps in New Zealand. He added that he was certain that the medical authorities attached to the Military Department had in some instances not been sutlicienlly strict in their examination of soldiers who were arriving by transports, and (hat, as a result, soldiers suffering from disease had been allowed their freedom. He instanced one case which had conic under his own notice. A returned soldier had been primarily responsible for the contamination of live people. He also mentioned another case, where a cook in a local hotel was suffering from syphilis, and continued to follow his occupation. The doctor remarked that the medical profession had absolutely no control over women who were suffering from contagious diseases, and, as a result, they could spread the contagion far and wide. He was firmly of opinion that some steps should be taken by the Government to introduce a measure whereby men and women suffering from a. contagious disease should be prevented from being a menace to society. He personally favoured a measure on the lines of the old Contagious Diseases Act. Touching on the matter of the medical examination of returned soldiers, it is said that one transport which brought back returned soldiers had no fewer than 3<S cums of venereal disease! on board. Might of the soldiers reported themselves as suffering from disease, and were placed in ipmranline. The other .‘s(l, however, did not report themselves as suffering from disease, and, although it is not denied that they might have recovered from the disease while on the voyage out, (here was, we undersland, no particular examination in their cases —they had not previously reported themselves —and they had slipped off the steamer with (he rest of the men who had not contracted any disease.