( 15 )
Statement showing the number of persons punished for breaches of the Contagious Diseases Act
in the District Court of Bassein during the year 1875.
Name of accused.
Section of the Act under which
convicted.
Sentence.
Mie Zee Zoo ... Section 4, Act XIV. of 1868 ... Fourteen days' imprisonment, with labour suited to her
sex.
Mie Gouk alias
Mie Hkah ...
Ditto
ditto
... One month's
ditto
ditto
ditto.
Mie Thaing
...
Ditto 16,
ditto
... Two months'
ditto
ditto
ditto.
Mie Ong-gaing ...
Ditto 11,
ditto
... To pay a fine of Rs. 5, or seven days'
ditto.
Achiah
. . .
Ditto
ditto
...
Ditto
ditto Rs. 3, or three ditto
ditto.
A new examination-table has recently been procured, and the arrangements for exa-
minations and treatment are satisfactory. Formerly a canvas
stretcher was in use for inspection purposes, and a worse con
trivance it would not be easy to conceive.
There appears to be much diversity of practice exercised in recording venereal diseases.
Studying the reports for last year
and the year before, it would
seem that all venereal sores are
placed under the heading of sy-
philis. No one can be more fully
alive to the difficulties of the immediate diagnosis of syphilis than myself ; but it is well
known that where there is one sore on the genitals of a prostitute which presents the
characters of constitutional disease, there are, at least, half a dozen of a non-specific nature.
It may be right to consider all sores on young prostitutes to be syphilitic, at first, when no
contra-indications are present ; but old prostitutes, who have long passed through the con-
tagious stage of syphilis, frequently contract ulcers which has no connection with their
tainted systems, and it is not correct to enter these either as syphilis or gonorrhoea. It is
not necessary to pass into this subject further than to remark that the sooner some accurate
and similar system of classification is observed throughout the Lock-hospitals of the pro-
vince, the more advantageous will it be. In the meantime, it is well to call simple ulcers
by their proper names. There has been no case of primary syphilis among the registered
prostitutes, but seven women have been confined for ulcers. Throughout the year 1874,
also, no registered prostitute contracted a primary syphilitic sore. It is right to add,
however, that most of the women on the register present unmistakable and repulsive evi-
dences of having acquired the disease in by-gone days. The only cases which have exhi-
bited any virulence have been these secondary syphilitic affections. One woman had her name
struck off the list on account of an ulceration passing into the rectum, which must render
her life the reverse of a pleasure to her ; another is next to unfit, from a contracted dis-
figurement ; a third is without a nose ; a fourth is congenitally malformed, and others carry
their nodes, gummata, and similar syphilitic manifestations. As before remarked, it is only
the floating population who frequent the registered prostitutes, and as they do not remain
for treatment, no relation can be traced between the disease in men and the women. The
venereal maladies sailors contract while they are here have no time to develop before they
leave. A comparative statement of the venereal disorders admitted for treatment at the dis-
pensary and jail hospital for the last three years, which comprises the time the Act has
been in full force in Bassein, is appended to this report, and the most satisfactory deduc-
tion to be gathered from it is that the dreadful disease, syphilis, is gradually declining. The
prostitutes are not detained during their monthly illness, and no woman with a non-vene-
real affection, strictly speaking, has been treated in this Lock-hospital during the year.
IX.—The arrangements for exa-
mining and treating the women of
the city and cantonment.
X.—How far disease has increased or decreased among the women ; to
what extent it has become less virulent in its nature, as compared with
that among the men. Is there any relation between the two ? How far
the admissions among the women are due to non-venereal affections or
to detention of women during their monthly illness.