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The public must learn to understand, another writer remarks, that "gonorrhoea is a pest that concerns its highest interests and most sacred relations as much as do smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, or tuberculosis." It cannot fairly be said that no attempts have been made to beat back the flood of venereal disease. On the contrary, such attempts have been made from the first.

In England, a writer in the Lancet, some years ago, found as the result of experience and inquiries that 75 per cent. adult males have had gonorrhoea once, 40 per cent. twice, 15 per cent. three or more times. According to Dulberg about twenty per cent. of new cases occur in married men of good social class, the disease being comparatively rare among married men of the working class in England.

L. E. D. The oil, commonly called nut or castor oil, is got by expression, retains somewhat of the mawkishness and acrimony of the nut; but is, in general, a safe and mild laxative in cases where we wish to avoid irritation, as in those of colic, calculus, gonorrhoea, &c. and some likewise use it as a purgative in worm-cases.

At one time the serious nature of gonorrhoea, especially in women, was little realized. Men accepted it with a light heart as a trivial accident; women ignored it.

The disease was certainly known at a very remote period. Even Esarhaddon, the famous King of Assyria, referred to in the Old Testament, was treated by the priests for a disorder which, as described in the cuneiform documents of the time, could only have been gonorrhoea. Cf. Memorandum by Sydney Stephenson, Report of Ophthalmia Neonatorum Committee, British Medical Journal, May 8, 1909.

Neisser states that only twenty-five per cent. of cases of gonorrhoea occur in married men. This indication is probably misleading in the opposite direction, as the married would be less reckless than the young and unmarried. As regards the motives which lead married men to prostitutes, Hedwig Hard narrates from her own experiences an incident which is instructive and no doubt typical.

It may be remarked that the aversion to acknowledge venereal disease is at least as marked in France as in any other country; "maladies honteuses" is a consecrated French term, just as "loathsome disease" is in English; "in the hospital," says Landret, "it requires much trouble to obtain an avowal of gonorrhoea, and we may esteem ourselves happy if the patient acknowledges the fact of having had syphilis."

The extent of these evils is set forth, e.g., in a comprehensive essay by Taylor, American Journal Obstetrics, January, 1908. Neisser brings together figures bearing on the prevalence of gonorrhoea in Germany, Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage, vol. ii, pp. 486-492. Lancet, September 23, 1882. As regards women, Dr. They were mostly poor respectable married women.

Any formal limitation of this kind is unnecessary, as in such a case the Court always takes into account the offender's ignorance or mere negligence, and it is mischievous because it tends to render an enactment ineffective and to put a premium on ignorance; the husbands who infect their wives with gonorrhoea immediately after marriage have usually done so from ignorance, and it should be at least necessary for them to prove that they have been fortified in their ignorance by medical advice.

Especially must she be free from diseases which may be communicated to the child either before or at the time of birth. This applies particularly to gonorrhoea, one of the most widely prevalent as well as most ancient of maladies, and syphilis, another disastrous and very common plague which is directly communicable.