The Marietta journal. (Marietta, Ga.) 1918-1944, 1919-04-04
When They Come Home

Your whole community will be at
the station when the boys come
marching home" You are planning to
honor these men with parades and
celebrations of all kinds. Are you max
ing sure that the profteers of vice are
not planning to take advantage of the
days of festivity to dishonor them be-
fore they get settled again in the nor
NAL ways of life?
When men and girls are changing
their occupations and ways of life, says
a pamphlet issued by the Treasury
Department, when war disciplines are
being removed and when spirits are
buoyant, the greatest temptations to
| self-indulgence and dangerous pleas
ures occur. Cities and towns through
out the country face now the most
important crisis-the biggest emery
ency yet encountered in the fight
against venereal diseases.
What the War Has Taught Us
Our ignorance and failure in hand
ling the problems of veneral diseases
constitute the greatest crime of Ameri-
can civilization This is the clearest
lesson of the war" This was the con-
clusion of a medical officer in charge
of the physical examinations of drafted
men as they were admitted to one of
our great army camps. He had been
a physician in civil life, but not until
he had seen with his own eyes the
hundreds of diseased young soldiers
as they filed by his examining table
did he realize the extreme seriousness
of the venereal problem.
Before the war, physicians and pub
lie health officers knew that gonorrhea
was every year causing thousands of
, cases of blindness among infants,
countless surgical operations on wO-
men, and sterility in both men and
women; that syphilis was being trans
mitted to offspring, causing physical
and mental detectives, that it was a
prolific cause of lOcOmOtor ataXia,
paralysis, paTesis or sOftening of the
brain, insanity, miscarriages, diseases
of TIE heart, blood vessels and other
vital organs. But people generally
did not know these things and few
medical measures were taken. The
war opened our eyes.
VenereaI Diseases Peace Problem
The examinations of drafted men
showed that five men came into the
army with venereal disease for every
one who contracted it after he was
/ in the army. And the one who con-
tracted it in the army, probably, was
infected in a civil community outside
of military control. Venereal disease
is, therefore, not a military problem or
war epidemic; it is a civilian problem
and a peace problem, taken over by
military authorities for the period of
the war only where civil communities
had failed in their duty. The draft
and physical examinations of men
merely resulted in digging underneath
the sod of our civil life and showing
that out of sight in every mans town,
in every mans state there has been
going on yearly waste of manhood,
womanhood and childhood by the raw
ages of these preventable diseases;
diseases whose causes we know, whose
germs we can see and identify through
the microscope; diseases which we
can locate in an individual; diseases
which are transmitted in the course
OF a business which has no possible
constructive use or value, by carriers
who have to advertise and can be
easily detected.
Your Responsibility
Now the returning soldiers, who
have been given intelligent protection
and wholesome recreation, are to be
turned back to the civil communities.
The federal government must, of ne
cessity, in the next few months, give
I'D its wartime control. These men are
your responsibility now.
Some of these men are in your lodge,
YOUR employ, your union, your church,
YOUR neighborhood, some are your
own sons. To protect these men from
vice means also the protection of the
girls of your community HUN IeHhp'n
ton and disgrace and the saving OF
future wives from disease and suffer
ing. Your community must organize
as the military authorities did to make
and keep your home town as easy
Mace in which to live clean as the
army.
Is YOUR community accepting its re-
construction task?
The Georgia State Board of Health
is ready to assist all who make applica-
ton in this great work by supplying
PAMPHLETS and delivering lectures.
They are making all laboratory tests
for the physicians Of the state when
requested and furnish free of charge
the expensive drug arspbenamive for
the treatment Of syphilis.
STATE BOARD OF HEALTH.