The Morning Post of Tuesday published an extraordinarily powerful and
cogent appeal from a large number of the best-
known doctors in the kingdom, beaded by such men as Sir Thomas Barlow, SirWilliam Osler, and Si rVictor Horsley, for the appointment of a Royal Commission on venereal disease. They pointed out that amid all the earnest hygienic work that is being done with notable success for the improvement of the national health the question of venereal disease is commonly passed over in silence. Yet this form of disease works absolute havoc, and is peculiarly venomous in its capacity for being conveyed and transmitted. There are forty thousand cases of the disease in its gravest form in London every year, and a hundred and thirty thousand in the kingdom as a whole. Only a blind and ridiculous prudery can cause silence on such a terribly important subject as this. We notice that hardly any newspapers—the Pall Mall Gazette is a laudable exception —printed or commented on the doctors' letter, though we may assume that it was sent to many, if not to all.
Previous page
