venting disease in a great majority
of the cases in which it is used.

The Inter-departmental Committee on Infectious Diseases set up by the
Ministry of Health in 1919 in connection with demobilization, in a note
on "Prophylaxis against venereal disease," reported among its
conclusions based on service experience, "That where preventive
treatment is provided by a skilled attendant after exposure to infection
the results are better than when the same measures are taken by the
individual affected, even after the most careful instruction." After
exposure to infection there appears no reason why these diseases should
not be regarded in precisely the same manner as other infectious
diseases, and precautions taken to sterilize the parts which have been
exposed to infection.

It is to be noted that it is recommended that the prophylactic treatment
is to be carried out by some properly instructed person. This need not
necessarily be a medical man. It is suggested that this form of
prophylaxis might be carried out by an orderly at the venereal-disease
clinics. The notices posted in the public conveniences and other
suitable places indicating the existence of the clinics and the
necessity for treatment might include a guarded reference to their use
for this purpose.

This form of prophylaxis applies to males. In the case of females the
methods adopted would be also contraceptive, and the Committee do not
recommend that facilities should be provided for this.

The Committee must not be supposed to advocate prophylaxis as in any way
a substitute for continence and the cultivation of that high moral tone
that repels any suggestion of promiscuous sexual relationships, but they
feel that they could not properly ignore reference to a method of
prevention of these diseases which has proved very efficient in the
services, to which there appears no reasonable ethical objection, and
which brings their prophylaxis into line with that of other infectious
diseases.

SECTION 6.--LEGISLATION REQUIRED.

(A.) _Conditional Notification._

The only subjects of importance upon which the witnesses examined
differed materially in opinion were--(1) whether there ought to be any
system of notification of cases of venereal disease, and (2) what steps,
if any, should be taken to deal with persons suffering from such disease
in a communicable form who refused to be treated, and in some cases were
even known to be spreading the disease broad