point of virulence, and, in point of diffusion, not to be
compared therewith, yet are they the terror of the population ... while
before syphilis society stands, one feels inclined to say, with
frightful indifference." The fault lies in the circumstance that it is
considered "improper" to talk openly of such things. Did not even the
German Reichstag stop short before a resolution to provide by law that
sexual diseases, as well as all others, shall be treated by Sick-Benefit
Associations?

The syphilitic virus is in its effects the most tenacious and hardest
poison to stamp out. Many years after an outbreak has been overcome, and
the patient believes every trace to be wiped out, the sequels frequently
crop up afresh in the wife or the new-born child;[108] and a swarm of
ailments among wives and children trace their causes back, respectively,
to marital and parental venereal diseases. With some who are born blind,
the misfortune is due to the father's sins, the consequences of which
transmitted themselves to the wife, and from her to the child.
Weak-minded and idiotic children may frequently ascribe their infirmity
to the same cause. Finally, what dire disaster may be achieved through
vaccination by an insignificant drop of syphilitic blood, our own days
can furnish crass illustrations of.

In the measure that men, willingly or otherwise, renounce marriage, and
seek the gratification of natural impulses through illegitimate
channels, seductive allurements increase also. The great profits yielded
by all undertakings that cater to immorality, attract numerous and
unscrupulous business men, who spare no artifice of refinement to draw
and keep customers. Account is taken of every demand, according to the
rank and position of the custom, also of its means and readiness to
bleed. If some of these "public houses" in our large cities were to blab
out their secrets, the fact would appear that their female
tenants--mostly of low extraction, without either culture or education,
often unable to write their own names, but possessed of all the mere
physical charms--stand in the most intimate relations with "leaders of
society," with men of high intelligence and culture. There would be
found among these Cabinet Ministers, high military dignitaries,
Councillors, members of Legislatures, Judges, etc., going in and out,
and side by side with representatives of the aristocracy of birth, of
finance, of commerce and of industry,--all of them