The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1909-06-17
Capitalism and Vice Diseases.


Capitalism and Vice Diseases.
Having thus shown that prostitution
is a business with men seeking to en-.
trap girls, and others exploiting then
o fine revenues of the sale of theil
bodies, Roosevelt's Home commission
next takes up the matter of vice dis
eases. These are more prevalent, accord.
ing to the commission, under the high.
ly moral profit system than most peo-
pie suspect. To quote from the report
According to Fourier, one seventh
of the population of Paris is syphilitic
and the mortality of infants born OF
syrhilitic parents in many hospitals OF
that city reaches 81 to Sc per cent.
According to DR.. Weiss, there are 10
coo syphilitics in Berlin, or II per cent
of the inhabitants.
"In 1901 a committee of seven under
the auspices of the Medical society OF
the county of New York, made an in
vestigation into the prevalence of ven
ereal diseases, and from the informa-
ton received from private physicians
reports of the hospitals and dispensaries
concluded that there were not less than
$4,000 cases of venereal diseases treated
in one year in that city. During the
same year there We're only Al $50 other
ooaos &c ;vfoo+;o,,g ~ oc,,,,,,,,,,; oc III, AZ
eases reported to the health department.
viz: Measles, 1850; diphtheria, Il,OOl
tuberculosis, SSH; scarlet fever, 77S7;
80. In other words, the NOR
bidity from venereal diseases was nearly
six times greater than that from ali tho
above named infectious diseases COM
bined. Page 2l44.
"Neisser, of Germany, holds that eon.
orrhea is, with the exception of perhaps
measles, the most widespread of all dis
eases. Other German authorities have
that fully three-quarters OF
the adult male population, and one-siXtF
or more of the adult females have con
tracted gonorrhea, and that Is per cent
of the population is syphilitic.
"Dr. Prince A. Morrow, based upon a
large personal experience and the results
of the New York and Baltimore inves-
legations by committees on sanitary and
moral prophylaXis, says:
Assuming from experience and the
collected in New York and in
Baltimore that our population is more
vrtuous than that of Europe it must
be a conservative estimate that in this
country the morbidity from gonorrhea
would represent 60 per cent of the adult
male population, and that of syphilis
from 10 to Is per cent, which would
mean that between 100000 to 1000,
GOO cases are annually treated in this
country, According to Morrow, 90 per
cent of the cases occur before the TWEEN
tyfirst year, 60 per cent before the
twenty sixth year and 10 per cent of
the men who marry infect their wives.
The report of the New York committee
would indicate that nearly 80 per cent
of all venereal infections occurring in
women in private practice in that city
are communicated by their husbands,
and from his personal observations at
the New York hospital, extending over
a period of several years, he concludes
that fully 20 per cent of all women who
come therein for treatment were respect
able married women who had been in
fected by their husbands. Page 2l5.
That is home life for you under cap
italsm. 1t looks like it must have SCI
for Roosevelt's picture of "the absolute
of all morality as between
man and woman"
10 be Concluded Next Week.