The plan of compelling the inmates of bawdy houses to submit to medical inspection once or even twice a week is so unscientific and unreasonable that its absurdity cannot fail to be at once apparent to the merest tyro in medical matters; and in fact, no government or municipality which has ever enforced this system has been able to materially lessen the disease which goes hand in hand with prostitution.
In some countries, in certain localities subject to military rule, the soldiers as well as the prostitutes are submitted to inspection by well qualified surgeons; and the diseased of both sexes are promptly sent to hospital until no longer considered capable of spreading contamination.
Of course this lessens the spread of venereal disease at the military cantonments; but it must be remembered that most of the women, as soon as they have reason to believe that they are diseased, flee to the surrounding towns in order to avoid the examinations of the military surgeons, and there spread havoc among the civilians who are unprotected by the same system.
Therefore all statistics compiled from army records are inapplicable to civilian communities where the uninspected men are free to roam at will and communicate disease.
Laymen impute powers to the medical profession which we do not possess, and think that any doctor can tell at a glance when a man or a woman has venereal disease. But in reality the highest degree of medical skill is required in order to diagnose these disorders, except when they are in an active stage of development; and one examination, however thorough, is practically valueless in giving assurance of the absence of venereal disease. As previously mentioned, it is at times very easy to say when a patient has venereal disease, but most difficult to decide that he or she has it not.
For the detection of gonorrhoea, several examinations must be made by the most skilful experts; and for the recognition of syphilis we have, during the greater extent of the progress of the disease, absolutely no proofs except the patient's verbal history of the case and those who would be subjected to inspection by force of law would naturally lie.
To determine bacteriologically whether gonorrhoea is present or not, the venereal specialist is compelled, in doubtful cases, to keep the suspect under observation for at least two weeks; and it is a common procedure to artificially produce an irritation in the urethra, in order to favor the reappearance of the disease germs in the discharges.
The health department of every town quarantines all cases of small pox, scarlet fever, yellow fever, cholera and diphtheria, whether occurring in man, woman, or child; and yet the regulation system has attempted to examine only the prostitutes for venereal disease, while it is estimated that five times as many men as women are unchaste!
"No system of inspection can ever be effective so long as it applies to but one party in the act, and that party, collectively, in the minority. Regulation of vice is not only unjust to women, it is not only immoral and cowardly, but it is utterly unscientific. You might as well try to prevent the spread of small pox or cholera by quarantining one sex only".
At the time of the medical examination of the prostitute for disease she might appear perfectly healthy; for the incubation period in gonorrhoea lasts usually from two to six days, and in syphilis usually from ten to forty days, during which periods there are no symptoms, although the patient is almost certain to spread infection.