lly happens that the child dies before birth, or lingers
out a miserable existence of a few days or weeks thereafter. A most
pitiable sight these little ones are. Their faces look as old as
children of ten or twelve. Often their bodies become reduced before
death to the most wretched skeletons. Their hollow, feeble cry sends
a shudder of horror through the listener, and impresses indelibly the
terrible consequences of sexual sin. Plenty of these scrawny infants
may be seen in the lying-in hospitals.

No one can estimate how much of the excessive mortality of infants is
owing to this cause.

In children who survive infancy, its blighting influence may be seen
in the notched, deformed teeth, and other defects; and very often it
will be found, upon looking into the mouth of the child, that the soft
palate, and perhaps the hard palate as well, is in a state of ulceration.
There is more than a suspicion that this disease may be transmitted
for several generations, perhaps remaining latent during the life-time
of one, and appearing in all its virulence in the next.

Man the Only Transgressor.--Man is the only animal that abuses his
sexual organization by making it subservient to other ends than
reproduction; hence he is the only sufferer from this foul disease,
which is one of the penalties of such abuse. Attempts have been made
to communicate the disease to lower animals, but without success, even
though inoculation was practiced.

Origin of the Foul Disease.--Where or when the disease originated, is
a mystery. It is said to have been introduced into France from Naples
by French soldiers. That it originated spontaneously at some time can
scarcely be doubted, and that it might originate under circumstances
of excessive violation of the laws of chastity is rendered probable
by the fact that gonorrhea, or an infectious disease exactly resembling
it, is often caused by excessive indulgence, from which cause it not
infrequently occurs in the newly married, giving rise to unjust
suspicion of infidelity on both sides.

Read the following from a noted French physician:--

"The father, as well as the mother, communicates the syphilitic virus
to the children. These poor little beings are attacked sometimes at
their birth; more often it is at the end of a month or two, before these
morbid symptoms appear.

"I recall the heart-rending anguish of a mother whom I assisted at her
fifth confinement. She related to me her misfortune: