"Draft Pamphlet On Social Hygiene, 1918" by Francis Mairs Huntington-Wilson

Approved by

The Council of National Defense, Washington

The U.S. Bureau for Children’s Welfare

The U.S. Commissioner of Education

The Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, L. I.

Endeavor to get the local clergy, teachers, doctors, women’s organizations, employers and others to make the contents of this pamphlet generally known. To do so will be a patriotic work.

Distributed by the Committee of Patriotic and Defense Societies, at the request of the National Defense League.

2. About Sex Hygiene

Sexual continence is entirely compatible with health. Abstention from alcohol; avoidance of too much meat or protein in the diet; good physical training, with plenty of hard exercise or work out-of-doors and the pride of fitness of body; and worthwhile reading and other clean mental occupation will make continence comparatively easy. Early marriage and the ambition to raise fine children, to have a home, and to enjoy the fullness of life, and to take one’s place as an honored citizen in the community will be incentive to chastity among young men. The “wild oats” tradition is exploded. The “double standard” as between men and women is unjustifiable. A new standard can only be set up if the women of the country refuse longer to tolerate the old one.

Gonorrhea and syphilis have been mastered by science. Ignorance and moral hypocrisy are alone responsible for allowing them to remain the last among the great plagues of world-wide prevalence which afflict mankind almost unchallenged. Gonorrhea is harder to cure than syphilis. Contrary to popular impression it is a most serious disease. It may impair the sexual power. It produces urethral strictures. Sometimes venereal rheumatism results. It not infrequently infects the testicles and destroys irreparably the channels by which the spermatazoa or male element of life must pass into the semen to fecundate the ovum. 80% of the deaths due to diseases peculiar to women and over 70% of all gynecological operations and maladies are the results of infection from gonorrhea often when the male had supposed himself cured. Vast numbers of women invalids are its victims. Gonorrhea may make the male sterile. In half the cases it makes the woman absolutely and irreparably sterile from the beginning. If not, it is still more probable that she will become sterile after the birth of one child. Gonorrhea is ultimately responsible for from 70% to 75% of all involuntary sterility in marriage, - either through the sterility of the male as a result of the disease or through the destruction by it of the female’s fertility. Gonorrhea is the cause of ¼ of all blindness in children. Adults may become blind through the direct infection of their eyes with it.

It should also be mentioned that if the male is under the influence of alcohol at the time of sexual intercourse the spermatazoa are affected in such fashion that resultant conception may result in the birth of a defective child.

Insurance statistics prove that syphilis shortens life. Some cases are incurable. Some are fatal. Syphilis may attack any organ of the body. Among the many diseases to which it may later lead are apoplexy, paralysis, insanity, softening of the brain, locomotor ataxia, the most horrible form of rheumatism (arthritis deformans?). The child of a syphilitic parent may be born dead or born to a short sickly life. Or such a child may live a life of bad health, incapacity and misery due to the inherited taint.

Estimated percentages of venereal disease in university men. Birth-rate of university classes. In armies. All prostitutes have a venereal disease at some time: some all the time. The diseases are common, too, among loose women not classified as prostitutes.

A new standard held up by public opinion, and above all by the women of America, is the one greatest means of lessening these horrors. “Only the brave deserve the fair”, -and men are brave. Let only the fit and the clean-living deserve the fair; let it be the 20th century ideal that such is true manliness, and men will be fit and clean-lived. The new standard will appeal to the best of the nation, which, due to ignorance, low popular standards, and hypocrisy has been hitherto the victim, along with the rest, of these terrible diseases. It is in the protection of the sound and normal, those best fitted to perpetuate the stock of the nation; that is centered the interest of the nation and the state. Despite public opinion, despite wise laws, many of the vicious and the unfortunate defectives will be vicious and sexually promiscuous still. These should be helped. But if they cannot be fully controlled, at least their conduct will not destroy the best stock of the nation.

Frank universal understanding of the subject and a new standard, then, are the first essentials. Among specific things wanted are venereal dispensaries (in connection with existing hospitals) for prophylaxis and for the treatment and cure of infected persons who now fall largely the victims of quacks and charlatans.

This is a vital national interest and calls for work of preparedness for peace as well as for war. These subjects go to the roots of the question whether America is to survive as a fine nation. Viewed then broadly and boldly, consideration of these subjects must raise not only moral and medical issues but great issues of policy and sociology. Such questions are marriage and divorce as state concern, with special reference to the economic, educational, and physical, moral and mental welfare of children.

World War I Era Documents, 1914-1918

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