Montana labor news., 1944-07-20
UNITE AGAINST
VENEREAL DISEASE
By WALTER CLARKE. NJ. D.


"a series of articles on venereal
disease by DR.. Walter Clarke, execu-
tive director, American Social Hy-
giene association, 1890 Broadway,
New York 10, New York The asso-
citation is a national voluntary health
agency closely teamed up with the
Army and Navy in the wartime COM
paign to combat syphilis and gonnor-
hea and all conditions favoring
their spread, and is a participating
service of the National War Fund.
The first article in this series touched
upon the tragic toll exacted of babies by
syphilis. A woman may pass the disease
on to her unborn child. child born
with this disease is said to have con-
genital syphilis. At least out of 6 of
the pregnancies of untreated syphilitie
women end in babies dead or syphilitic.
Ten out of II babies born of syphilitic
mothers who have had adequate treat
ment during pregnancy are free from
syphilis
In the United States, the best estimate
is that 10000 babies are born each year
with syphilis. This does not include the
number born dead This is the sorry
truth in spite of the fact that congenital
syphilis is 95 per cent preventable.
Good News
1t is gratifying to be able to report in
this connection. that continued progress
was made during 1943 in the enactment
by state legislatures of laws requiring
blood tests for expectant mothers and for
people applying for marriage licenses
A legislative survey made by the
American Social Hygiene association
shows that Indiana, Nebraska, Missouri
and Wyoming passed premarital laws re-
quiring examination by physician of
both applicants for a marriage license,
including a blood test for syphilis as
prerequisite for a marriage license. Idaho
Georgia, Kansas and Nebraska adopted
/ prenatal laws Requiring a physician to
perform blood tests as part of his ex-
animation of expectant mothers.
This means that there are now 30
states which have premarital laws for
the protection of marriage from syphilis
and 30 states which have prenatal laws
protecting babies from syphilis. The
] first premarital examination law was
passed in May 1885, by Connecticut.
New York and Rhode Island enacted the
first prenatal examination laws in 1888.
The purpose of these premarital and
prenatal laws is to enable physicians to
! find cases of syphilis, and To give the
treatment which will protect families.
Experience has proved that such legis-
lation results in the finding Of a much
larger number of cases, and certainly in
the prevention of a large number of
cases of syphilis among children.
It Can Be Licked
one of our leading health authorities
indirectly emphasized the Importance of
these laws when he said: "The first
thing to do completely, in my opinion,
is to wipe out congenital syphilis. That
is one job that doesn't need to take a
generation. There is less guesswork in
it than in almost anything else known to
medicine. We know absolutely that with
good treatment started before the fifth
month of pregnancy there is only one
chance in IL that the syphilitic mother
will not bear a healthy child"
Trade unionists would do well to find
out if their states have premarital and
prenatal laws If not, they should con-
slider joining forces with local social hy-
giene agencies and Other community
groups to gain public support needed for
the passage of such laws.