ious arguments of their
opponents. It has been claimed that syphilitic disorders are a peculiar
and supernatural punishment for sin and wrong-doing; that by interfering
with their legitimate action on the guilty, we presume to diminish the
punishments inflicted by the Almighty; and, in so far as we cure or
restrain these diseases, we lessen one great sanction which nature and
Providence have placed before the infraction of the law of virtue.

The medical man, however, replies very pertinently that he has nothing
to do with the Divine sanctions; that his business is to cure human
diseases and lessen human suffering wherever he find them; and that
gout, or rheumatism, or diphtheria, or scarlet fever, are as much
"punishments" as the diseases of this vice. If he refused to visit a
patient whenever he thought that his sins had brought upon him his
diseases, he would have very little occupation, and mankind would
receive very little alleviation from the medical art. Nor is he even
called upon to refuse to cure a patient who, he knows, will immediately
begin again his evil courses. The physician is not a judge or an
executioner. He has nothing to do but to cure and alleviate. Influenced
by this aspect of his duty, the medical man almost universally advocates
licenses to prostitutes, based on medical examination, and a strict
legal control of the participants in this offense.

On the other hand, those of us who deal with the moral aspects of the
case, and who know the class that are ruined body and soul by this
criminal business, have a profound dread of anything which, to the
young, should appear to legalize or approve, or even recognize it. The
worst evil in prostitution is to the woman, and the worst element in
that is moral rather than physical.

The man has the tremendous responsibility on his soul of doing his part
in helping to plunge a human being into the lowest depths of misery and
moral degradation. He has also all the moral responsibility which the
Divine law of purity places on each individual, and the farther burden
of possibly causing disease hereafter to the innocent and virtuous.

But the woman who pursues this as a business has seldom any hope in this
world, either of mental or moral health. The class, as a class, are the
most desperate and unfortunate which reformatory agencies ever touch.
Now, any friend of the well-being of society, knowing the strength of
men's passions, and the utter misery and degrad