eighteen per cent. of all his patients are
syphilitic. In Copenhagen, where notification is obligatory, over four per
cent. of the population are said to be syphilitic. In America a committee
of the Medical Society of New York, appointed to investigate the question,
reported as the result of exhaustive inquiry that in the city of New York
not less than a quarter of a million of cases of venereal disease occurred
every year, and a leading New York dermatologist has stated that among the
better class families he knows intimately at least one-third of the sons
have had syphilis. In Germany eight hundred thousand cases of venereal
disease are by one authority estimated to occur yearly, and in the larger
universities twenty-five per cent. of the students are infected every
term, venereal disease being, however, specially common among students.
The yearly number of men invalided in the German army by venereal diseases
equals a third of the total number wounded in the Franco-Prussian war. Yet
the German army stands fairly high as regards freedom from venereal
disease when compared with the British army which is more syphilized than
any other European army.[230] The British army, however, being
professional and not national, is less representative of the people than
is the case in countries where some form of conscription prevails. At one
London hospital it could be ascertained that ten per cent. of the patients
had had syphilis; this probably means a real proportion of about fifteen
per cent., a high though not extremely high ratio. Yet it is obvious that
even if the ratio is really lower than this the national loss in life and
health, in defective procreation and racial deterioration, must be
enormous and practically incalculable. Even in cash the venereal budget is
comparable in amount to the general budget of a great nation. Stritch
estimates that the cost to the British nation of venereal diseases in the
army, navy and Government departments alone, amounts annually to
L3,000,000, and when allowance is made for superannuations and sick-leave
indirectly occasioned through these diseases, though not appearing in the
returns as such, the more accurate estimate of the cost to the nation is
stated to be L7,000,000. The adoption of simple hygienic measures for the
prevention and the speedy cure of venereal diseases will be not only
indirectly but even directly a source of immense wealth to the nation.

Syphilis is the most obvious