The Contagious Diseases Act of 1866, and its extension to the civil population of the United Kingdom / by J. Brendon Curgenven.

  • Curgenven, J. Brendon (John Brendon), 1831-1903.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Contagious Diseases Act of 1866, and its extension to the civil population of the United Kingdom / by J. Brendon Curgenven. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Mr. Inglott, Comptroller of Charitable Institutions at Malta, writing to Mr. Skey, says:— “ Females leading a life of prostitution were, from the time of the Knights 1 believe, subjected to certain police regulations and to ‘ periodical personal inspection ; ’ but in the beginning of 1859 it was found that the ‘personal inspection’ was not ordained by law, but was a traditional abuse of power, which may be put at defiance by the slightest resistance. The fact was artfully communicated to the peculiar class of persons concerned, and a general resistance was soon made to the practice. “ The awful consequences of non-restraint soon became apparent, more especially in the wards of the military and naval hospitals, and the Local Government was moved to enact the enclosed Ordinance, with the view of preventing the spreading of the disease. “From its few' and brief enactments the ‘details of our manage- ment ’ can be very easily inferred. “ The operation of this law has had the effect of checking public prostitution to a great extent, besides of almost annihilating the disease. I* # * * * * * L “ The Malta law, you will observe, does not involve ‘ a system of legal recognition of public prostitution,’ it does not ‘license females to the unlawful occupation,’ but simply places those who practise it under a kind of surveillance, with a view of obtaining a sanitary advantage by enforcing a measure which tends to mitigate or prevent the awful consequences of neglected syphilitic affections. Besides ‘periodical personal inspection,’ the Malta law also enjoins the es- tablishment of ‘ Lock Hospitals,’ without which the good results I have described would not have been obtained. “ Syphilitic affections, being thus timely discovered and forcibly placed under medical treatment, are generally primitive in their character, and consequently easily overcome. Cases of consecutive syphilis are comparatively rare, and none present those horrid forms so common where the disease is under no surveillance. “ Seasons have come during which the wards of the ‘Lock Hos- pital’ contained but one or two cases, and were it not for the inocu- lation from imported affections by foreigners and others, the disease would have long been extinct’.’ Lieut.-Gen. Sir Henry Storks, K.C.B., in a letter to Mr. Skey, Chairman of the Committee, says :— “ When I held the office of Her Majesty’s Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands I gave a good deal of attention to this subject, and 1 found that the disease prevailed in all the larger islands, and that the troops suffered a good deal from it. “ It was determined to apply with care and vigour the powers given by the law as regarded registration and inspection of prostitutes, and