properly used venereal disease may disappear."

That proved to be exactly my own experience in the army. Failures in the
army were due to the absence of proper personal instruction of the men and
the laxity of control, and these conditions can always be assumed to exist
in any army having a high v.d. infection rate.--E.A.R.]

Nevertheless, the people who would put sacerdotalism before science, and
the still meaner minds who would substitute legality for morality, raised
storms of objection to my work, in the midst of which came a few strong,
clear calls of understanding and encouragement.

One Scotch padre wrote me in 1918:--

"It is a magnificent adventure for a woman to go practically alone
on the very edge of things, and I salute you, and congratulate you,
and wish you _God-speed_."

An old family doctor, then with a colonial ambulance, wrote:--

"Many women ... will owe their health and happiness to you, and not
a few will be indebted to you for their lives."

The editor of the Sydney _Bulletin_ (Australia) was continually publishing
helpful articles and paragraphs--after my letters and articles were
censored;[M] and from Dr. W.H. Symes, of Christchurch, New Zealand, I
heard by personal correspondence steadily and wisely all through the war.
Much later came the following tribute, in a most valuable book written by
Sir Archdall Reid and Sir Bryan Donkin ("Prevention of Venereal Disease,"
published by William Heinemann (Medical Books) Limited)[N]:--

"Sir Bryan Donkin's letter, which appeared in _The Times_, in
January, 1917, and other communications which he published as
opportunity offered, brought him an introduction from Sir J.W.
Barrett, M.D., then serving as A.D.M.S. with the Australian Force
in Egypt, to Miss Ettie Rout, who, by profession a journalist, had
come with the Australian and New Zealand Forces with the object of
ameliorating, as far as possible, the hardships of war. She had
been horrified by the pestilence of venereal disease which broke
out among the troops in Egypt, England, and elsewhere, and, with
extraordinary resolution and courage, had embarked almost
single-handed on a campaign of prevention. She furnished Sir Bryan,
and later myself also, with much valuable information, and for her
own part fought the battle most strenuously--living among the men,
lecturing, finding and instructing lec