s
should be cleaned up or cleared out of the community--_i.e._, cured or
quarantined. Similarly, it is even more troublesome to prevent a woman
becoming infected if she is having relationship with an active
gonorrhoeic or syphilitic man, and such men should be treated
voluntarily, or compulsorily if they refuse or neglect voluntary
treatment. Free treatment should be available to poor persons only;
providing free treatment for all and sundry, whether they can afford to
pay for it or not, is simply encouraging men and women to trust to luck
rather than to disinfection. This presupposes that the teaching of
self-disinfection has been done confidently and authoritatively. When
prevention has been properly taught, then it is fair to penalise those who
wilfully neglect to take precautions. It was a great misfortune to the
Anglo-Saxons when the Contagious Diseases Acts were abolished; instead
they should have been improved and extended to both sexes. Their
abolition was the worst blow ever struck at marriage. Fortunately, their
main principles we are now beginning to re-enact in various Sexual Hygiene
Acts. The more "drastic"--_i.e._, the more efficient--these are, the more
they should be supported by those who honestly desire to _make marriage
safe_.

[Footnote R: The argument that compulsory treatment would "drive the
disease underground" is absurd. Venereal disease is underground
now.--E.A.R.]

Apart from voluntary and compulsory treatment for venereal diseases, we
certainly need voluntary and compulsory sterilisation of the
unfit--diseased and feeble-minded and otherwise unfit persons, who,
whatever their other qualifications may be, are unsuitable as parents. But
whatever operation is decided upon, for men and for women, must in no way
interfere with ordinary sexual activity; otherwise it will be promptly
turned down by the general public, no matter what its medical advocates
may say. In marriage the partner to be sterilised is obviously the one who
is unfit for parenthood.[S]

[Footnote S: Towards the end of last year, extraordinary interest was
aroused throughout the United States by a decision of Judge Royal Graham,
of the Children's Court of Denver. He had ordered Mrs. Clyde Cassidente to
submit to an operation to make further motherhood impossible, because of
the under-nourishment of her five children and the habitual insanitary
condition of her home. This was the first time any American court had
imposed such c