t,
everywhere prevalent, is for obvious reasons especially common in our
large cities, where even children of both sexes are frequently initiated
into sexual practices before puberty--a fact familiar to physicians and
often revealed in our Juvenile Courts, though apparently unsuspected by
parents in general. Chicago papers recently recorded the discovery of
such practices among pupils of a public school.

The illicit sexual relation is the chief though not the only factor in
the dissemination of the two serious venereal diseases; so prevalent are
these in our large cities that at least half the adult male population
of all social grades, according to conservative estimates, contract one
or both of them. (In Germany gonorrhoea is the most frequent of all
diseases, with the single exception of measles; in America it is about
as frequent.) Were the evil effects of these diseases limited to those
who seek clandestine indulgence, discussion of this distasteful topic
might be reserved for them only; but since he who has acquired either of
these diseases is, for an indefinite period, a possible source of
contagion to his associates--especially to his bride and her
children--the essential facts should be understood by every adult. These
facts, so far as they concern the public welfare, are here briefly
summarized:

1. Every prostitute, public or private, acquires venereal disease sooner
or later; hence all of them are diseased some of the time, and some of
them practically all of the time. The man who patronizes them risks his
health at every exposure.

2. Medical inspection is an advantage to the prostitute chiefly because
it gives her patron a false sense of security. Even the most elaborate
and painstaking examination--and such is not bestowed upon the
prostitute--may fail to detect a woman's lurking infectiousness; the
perfunctory, routine examination actually made affords but a feeble
protection to the patron. Moreover, at the first cohabitation after such
examination she may acquire disease which she may transmit to every
subsequent patron, until it is perhaps discovered at the next
examination.

3. The many antiseptic washes, lotions and injections upon which the
ignorant rely for protection from disease, are inefficient; not because
they cannot destroy the germs of disease, but because they do not
penetrate the skin and mucous membranes in which these germs have been
sheltered.

4. Gonorrhoea in the male, while u