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A SOCIAL PLAGUE,
Tas announcement of meetings for men and women of the European community In connection with the visit to the Colony of a Commission sent out to the Far East by the National Council for combating Venereal Diseases, calls attention in a Jorceful manner to an important move- heat which has been inaugurated under aational-we believe we may say inter- national-auspices, to check what is anquestionably a grave social plague hroughout the world. Not so long ago people would have been shocked to read
оп
these things" in the papers, hut of late years the need for the enlightenment of the general public at home on the ravity of the evil has become so widely pognised that there is no longer much alse modesty shown the subject. Press and placard are being freely used In an educational campaign, and men and comen are co-operating in an organised fort to fight this deadly plague, which we are given to understand has a very strong grip in this Colony, and not only Among the Chinese population.
In the early periods of its history this disease was regarded as incurable and it was only after centuries of research that remedy was found. The position now
25
aure.
to
is that, taken early, syphilis is regarded
always easy to nearly
ia required But
attention expert during the whole time that the patient is infected. Any carelessness leads Incalculable trouble, and too often means that subsequent generations have to face the penalty for the sins of their parents. The great fact that has to be remembered bout this disease is that it is very often haught by kissing an infected person, or foming in contact with the towel or cloth- ng of an infected person, drinking from an infected glass, or as the result of the
erms released by coughing. hese various ways of infection it is easy
OF
With all
see that infection may be taken mocently, and it is by no means a sign of moral depravity. The best way to ttack it is to tell the public everything here is to know about it and to educate hildren in the schools in its dangers when they have reached a discriminating age. It is the same with the companion dis SRDCE. More of these are made acute through ignorance than from any other Irause. Taken at the outset constitutional daager is eliminated and the ravages of the germs confined. But to allow a quack to handle such a complaint, or for patients to treat themselves, is in nine caes out of ten disastrous. These com- plaints call for skilled medical attention, as their characteristic is to go into the stem, giving the outward appearance of a cure while they continue to be highly infections, and finally involve the patient and his or her particular intimates with
te or more stubborn and ravaging dia- (2000) -really different forms of the same pomplaint As long as ignorance and
and infection will continue to spread, but let the subject be openly and decently discussed by persons qualified to do so and a check will be administered in a very brief space of time.
The Commission which is at present in Hongkong, has come out from home by the Pacific route and has carried on investigations in Japan and in Shanghai. In the latter port the Commission, which enfisted the support of the Municipal Council, beld meetings and organised committees to carry on the campaign in the same way as they are doing here. We understand that the aim is to estab- lish bere free clinics under the direction of an expert in the disease, where patients may be treated by a staff which AD has taken a post-graduate course. idea has widely prevailed that a success. ful way of fighting the plague is by licensing social vice, but one of the things the Commission learnt in Japan, where the question is being dealt with from a purely hygienic, rather than a moral, point of view, is that an experiment in one of the prefectures of Japan where the "Yoshiwara. " system was abolished, showed that the incidence of the disease among young men called up for service with the colours has fallen from some- thing like 40 per cent. to 15 per cent. This explodes the argument that abolition of so-called "controlled resorts" results in a wider spread of clandestine inter- course and the consequent increase of the dangers of infection.
In many countries of Europe, including Great Britain,
A$ well S in the governing colonies, a legal obligation
self-
is now imposed on people suffering from the disease to procure proper medical treatment. The public hospitals main- tain free clinics for this purpose. In short there is organised warfare on the disease by publicity and the profession of healing, and it is desired to bring the ports of the Far East into line with the rest of the world in this matter. It is a subject, we understand, which is shortly to engage the attention of the League of Nations with a view to international action, and the British National Council for combating Venerea! Disease, desires, through the work of such Commissions as that now visiting Hongkong, to be able to show that Great Britain, which is taking an active part in stimulating a world-wide interest in the subject, is endeavouring, throughout her wide dominons, to set ber own house in order.
Me Stong Kong Daily Press, Jenuary you, 1921.
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