rsonal Prophylaxis

Prophylaxis, of course, means prevention, and it has been a large part
of the purpose of the present study to deal with syphilis from the
standpoint of prevention and cure. The material of this chapter is,
therefore, only a special aspect of the larger problem.

+Repression of Prostitution.+--By the moral prophylaxis of syphilis is
meant the cultivation of such moral ideals as will contribute to the
control of a disease which is so closely associated with sexual
irregularities. Since public and secret prostitution serve as the
principal agencies for the dissemination of the disease, it follows that
anything tending to decrease the amount of disease in prostitutes, on
the one hand, or to diminish the amount of promiscuous sexual activity,
on the other, will retard the spread of syphilis. Systems based on the
first ideas, aiming rather to control the disease in public women by
inspection of their health and activities than by suppressing
prostitution, have failed because the methods of control ordinarily
practised are worthless for the detection of infectiousness. So-called
regulation has, therefore, given way very largely in progressive
communities to the second ideal of repressing or abolishing the outward
evidences of vice as far as possible. In behalf of sanitary control of
prostitution, leaving out of the question its moral aspect, it must be
admitted that Neisser, probably the greatest authority on the sexual
diseases, believed that, as far as syphilis is concerned, the use of
salvarsan as a means of preventing infection from prostitutes has never
had a satisfactory trial. In behalf of abolition it would seem that
systematic stamping-out of the outward evidences of vice, the making of
immorality less attractive and conspicuous, is, in theory at least, a
valuable means of diminishing the extent and availability of an
important source of infection.

+Educational Influences.+--To do something positive against an evil is
certainly a more promising mode of attack than to use only the negative
force of repression of temptation. Education of public opinion offers us
just such a positive mode of attack. Men and women and boys and girls
should first be taught sexual self-control even before being made aware
of the risk they run in throwing aside the conventional moral code.
Teach honor first and prudence next. The slogan of education in sexual
self-restraint is the easiest to utter and the most diffic