ABSTRACT
Dr. Arthur Payne, the superintendent of the Lock Hospital at Calcutta, has issued his first report on the working of the Contagious Diseases Act in that town. Our readers are aware that, since April, 1869, an attempt has been made to extend the Act to the civil population of the town and suburbs; and the success with which it has been followed cannot fail to be of interest, after the prolonged discussion to which the proposal of a similar enactment has given rise among ourselves. From the experience of wellnigh a year, Dr. Payne demonstrates, in a carefully sifted series of tables, that the Act, so far as it has been applied, “is effective in keeping down venereal disease in the women fairly subject to it; that the rate of removal of disease outstrips the rate of its reproduction, and that inspection is sufficiently frequent.” It is interesting to perceive that his facts and figures irresistibly point to the following conclusions:—First, that the daily withdrawal of 324 diseased women from their trade cannot but have influenced for good the health of the town; secondly, that the Act will eventually fulfil the object it has already in great part achieved by reducing the frequency and severity of the disease; thirdly, that the health of the male population has perceptibly improved in places where there is a fair command of the prostitution; fourthly, that amendment in the constitution of the Act is indispensable, as well as extension of its application; fifthly, that the evidence of prostitution requires authoritative definition, and that neither marriage nor other protection should be allowed to shield a woman from the liabilities of a prostitute’s life, when such life is proved against her; sixthly, that to obviate the repugnance with which the method of examination is regarded, the desire for home examination calls for the consideration of authority; and, seventhly, that with regard to the importation of the disease, the applicability of the Merchant Shipping Act should be considered.
