Prostitution, in relation to public health : forming the introductory chapter to the second edition of the Treatise on syphilis / by William Acton.

  • Acton, William, 1813-1875.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prostitution, in relation to public health : forming the introductory chapter to the second edition of the Treatise on syphilis / by William Acton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    8fc. “ It is time to burst through the veil of that artificial bashfulness which has injured the growth, while it has affected the features, of genuine purity. Society has suffered enough from that spurious modesty which lets fearful forms of vice swell to a rank luxu- riance, rather than point at their existence,—which coyly turns away its head from the ‘wounds and putrifying sores’ that are eating into our system, because it would have to blush at the exposure.”—Quarterly Review, 1846. Article on Prostitution. The origin and history of Venereal Diseases has probably given rise to greater difference of opinion than any other subject in the whole range of medical literature ; instead, however, of swelling my work by numerous quotations from the treatises of those who have entered fully nto the consideration of this subject, I shall, in the present introduc- '»ry remarks, merely give my own opinions, referring those who may je anxious to obtain further information to the classic work of Astruc, md the modern treatise of Dr. Weatherhead. A very superficial consideration of the laws which regulate the animal ;conomy in a state of health and disease, with the various operations )f these laws on the different structures of the human frame, are efficient, I think, in warranting the pathologist of the present day to nfer, that many of the various affections, both organic and functional, sow recognised as following sexual intercourse, and which I have here ncluded under the collective term “ Venereal Diseases,” * must have * By the term venereal diseases, I mean all those affections which are, more or less, irectly or indirectly, the consequence of sexual intercourse. They were first so called by '. M. Bethencoir+ r'f Rouen, in 1527.