, though
it cost him a great deal of effort to do so. He was to be married very
shortly. But ill-luck made him accept an invitation to a bachelor
dinner, where champagne and smutty stories were flowing freely, too
freely. He left about midnight, and as the night was beautiful he
decided to walk home. He met a siren, who invited him to accompany
her. Under other circumstances he would have sent her on her way, or
at least he would have stepped into a drugstore for a prophylactic.
But, excited by the wine, the smutty stories and the year's
abstinence, he went along like a sheep, as a matter of course, without
trying to reason or interposing any objections. He remembers
distinctly his feelings and the state of his mind. He was not drunk,
only exhilarated, but nevertheless the whole thing seemed to him so
normal, so natural, so expected, so matter-of-course, that he couldn't
think of acting otherwise than accept her invitation. And he stayed
two or three hours; and he used no prophylactic. And as a
result--three weeks later he had a typical primary syphilitic lesion.
How he felt and what it all meant to him the reader can imagine. This
is far from being an isolated, an exceptional case.

From my own practice I could cite a number of cases of venereal
infection in which alcohol was the direct, primary factor. How many
such cases there are altogether in the period of a year nobody can
say, but that they constitute a considerable percentage of the total
venereal morbidity every investigating sexologist will testify. Forel
claims that 76 per cent. of all venereal infection takes place under
the influence of alcohol; Notthaft is more moderate, more
discriminating in his statistics and his claims are--30 per cent. An
analysis of 1,000 cases of venereal infection, just published by Dr.
Hugo Hecht (_Venerische Infektion und Alkohol, Z.B.G._, Vol. XVI, No.
11) gives over 40 per cent. And the saddest part of it is that among
the infected were 75 married men (the author thinks there were more,
but only 75 confessed to being married), and of these, 45, equivalent
to 60 per cent., were under the influence of alcohol when they
contracted their venereal disease (extra-matrimonially, of course).

Alcoholic indulgence contributes to the spread of venereal disease
directly and indirectly. First and foremost it increases enormously
the amount of intercourse indulged in. I certainly do not belong to
those who believe that the sex instinct is