On the failure of the Contagious Diseases Acts : as proved by the official evidence submitted to the Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1879, 1880 and 1881 / James Stansfeld.

  • Stansfeld, James, 1820-1898.
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the failure of the Contagious Diseases Acts : as proved by the official evidence submitted to the Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1879, 1880 and 1881 / James Stansfeld. 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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    Parliament upon that Committee who are opposed to this legislation. He has sat there as the advocate of the Acts. He has neighboured with those who agreed with him, and turned aside from those opposed to this legislation as if they were beneath the notice of his new, official eye. You will not imagine that he has been allowed to pursue this course without an occasional reminder, and what I say about him I say simply because he is the representative, on that Committee, of the present Governmept. (Hear, hear.) I have made representations to the Government upon the subject, and what I said to them I now repeat to you to-day. Either he represents them or he does not; if he does represent them, then they are our opponents on this subject; if he does not represent them, it is time for them to look after him lest he should commit them too far. (Hear, hear.) Now, as to the progress made on that Committee. We have finished the hygienic question. But this is but the fringe of the great subject. (Hear, hear.) I have always said, and I repeat it here, that, to my mind, the most damning evidence against the Acts would bo the proof of their complete hygienic success. (Loud cheers.) And I do not say this from the moral standpoint only ; I say it from the hygienic standpoint; from the most lofty hygienic standpoint. If you could, by this legislation, guarantee what you profess to guarantee, that people might practice sexual vice without incurring the danger of the diseases incident to vice, you would not only demoralize the people, but you would physically degenerate and ruin the population. (Hear, hear.) Those members of the medical profession who are unable to rise to the conception of this hygienic argument, are grovelling in the mud of the specialisms which weaken and contaminate .their minds. But we have got to the end of the mere hygienic question. On the question of the army medical statistics and the vaunted results and success of this legislation, I think I have somewhat of a special right to point out to you the great success which we have obtained. No doubt, it has not been possible for all of you to follow carefully the reports of the examinations and cross-examinations of the medical witnesses before this Parliamentary Committee. Many of you may have read the epitomes of these examinations and cross-examinations which have appeared in The Shield. It is impossible for me to express too high an opinion of the marvellous justness and accuracy of those resumes. (Hear, hear.) Extreme accuracy and judicial com-