REGULATION 33B
Sta,—May a soldier be allowed space in your columns to express appreciation of the very frank and open manner in which you have conducted the discussions on the great and pressing problem of venereal disease treatment? Your correspondent, Miss N. Whelpton, in main- taining this high standard, touches on a matter of supreme importance when she says that " more constructive guidance for the young soldier than is supplied by the offer of a prophylactic packet " is required.
The recruits of our Army at home are living under conditions which call for most sympathetic treatment. Symptomatic of the modern attitude towards sex, young soldiers find all too often the question of venereal disease and its attendant causes and effects treated either with furtive secrecy or open vulgarity. The opportunities whereby a recruit may contract the disease are manifold, mentally from the sudden change to a completely new form of life, physically from the ease with wh.c.i he may so often be able to get into trouble on his off-duty evenings. Whilst it is all to the good that some form of immediate remedy should be at his disposal, the prophylactic packet is essentially a negative palliative.
Though separated by a decade from being classified as a " young soldier " I have lived and worked amongst them for over a year. These boys (for we tend to forget that that is really what they are), drawn from all sections of the community, are splendid lads of whom we may be
justly proud. Their moral level, speaking generally, is fundamentally good. But the immoral and the ignorant are always present. The education which the Army medical authorities provide for them could be enormously reinforced, both before they have actually joined up and whilst they are in the Army. The country owes it to these young soldiers to take every active precaution to ensure that they receive in advance full information and instruction, for however much is being done at the moment it is certainly not enough.—Yours faithfully,
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