Evening star., 1942-02-06
Greatest Army Peril
Is VenereaI Disease,
Parran Tells House
Rute Increase Alarming,
Many Local Situations
Bod, He Asserts
a, the Associated Press.

B. the Associated Press.
Surg. Gen. Thomas j. Parran to-
day listed venereal disease as still
the greatest cause of non-effective-
ness in the Army, and declared tol-
Grafton of commercialized prostitu-
ton has been traditional in the
South, the Southwest and the West
Coast"
He described it as the second
greatest cause of non-effectiveness
in the Navy, and reported also that
'in any boom town, with prosper
Gus war industries, the venereal dis
ease rate also is increasing at very
alarming rate, to a very alarming
degree"
The testimony of the veteran cam
paigner against the scourges OF
syphilis and sgonorrhea was made
public by the House Appropriations
Committee in sending to the floor
$50, ,59o,6l1 deficiency appropriation
bill =
DR.. Parran testified in behalf OF a
s2.5oo,oo0 request to further the
work of the Public Health Services
venereal disease division.
47.OO0 Per Million.
He said that under the Selective
Service Act, physicians had found
47oOo men suffering from sypnills
of every million examined.
I'VE know" he added, that these
470OO men got their syphilis from
some other source in the civilian
population.
Experience shows that for every
two persons infected and discovered,
approximately three are in the
population infected, but do not show
up for treatment. Therefore, l
think we are safe in assuming at
least one other female is in the pop
ulation for every one Of these males
whom we discover. Thus, for every
million men examined, we find ap-
proximately 10000 people with
syphilis" ,.,
He said the Army rate for 194l,
despite the fact that no one was
tnducted who was found suffering
from the disease, was about 40 per
thousand-approximatey half what
1t was in the World War-but said
thta he was no more satisfied with
the reduction than I would be sat-
isfied If the typhoid fever now were
half what the typhoid fever rate
was in the Spanish War"
A National Problem.
1.-THE disease is of Importance,
both from the standpoint Of man
power on the production line as
well as from the standpoint of men
in the Army" DR.. Parran said. ut
is a national problem"
He cited more than dozen ex-
amples of the prevalence of pros
titution. At Fayetteville, N. c., he
said, they had a prostitute popula-
ton that is reported to have grown
last year from around 200 women
to around 1000 to 5000"
Prostitution" he said, became
an expanded war industry in that
area. The local authorities were
given strong orders by the COM
manding officer at Fort Bragg to
clean up by the 1st of January.
It is a little early to say Just how
effective that action may be-"
Discussing his efforts to stamp
out the disease through clinics and
education in cooperation with the
States, he said the Army, Navy
and Federal Security Agency were
putting pressure" on non-co-op-
erative communities regarded as
''hot spots"
Locations Named.
Progress" he reported, has been
made in a number of towns: Until
recently Bremerton, Wash, had a
red-ight district. Seattle
has q bad reputation. The condi-
tions relative to prostitution there
were apparently very bad. But more
recently they have taken action in
closing up those places.
Tacoma, Wash, took action last
August in closing up its houses of
prostitution. Last year the situa-
tion at Salinas, Calf, was rather
bad, as was also the area around
Mare Island. Up until last month
the conditions at San Diego were
particularly bad until the naval
cofnmandant gave orders that some
thing had to be done about it,
San Antonio, Corpus Christi,
Houston and other Texas cities
have cleaned up bad situations, he
anfd