Part 56 (1/2)

and a.s.suming that the practice of the others is of the same extent, we have as the venereal cases treated in the three colleges:

1855 141 1856 159 1857 207

As many of the patrons of New York houses of ill fame reside out of the city, some further information must be sought beyond our own limits.

Without professing to inquire into the public health in all the suburbs previously enumerated, it will be sufficient to take the reports of the superintendents of the poor of King's County to ascertain what amount of syphilitic infection has been treated at the public cost in Brooklyn and its environs. The reports of Doctor Thomas Turner, Resident Physician of the King's County Hospital, show the following cases:

1853 165 1855 362 1857 311

or about ten per cent. on the total number treated.

In the Brooklyn City Hospital the cases of venereal disease received and treated were in

1854 158 1855 173 1856 160 1857 186 1858 (to May 1) 65

It has been already stated that sailors are great patrons of prost.i.tutes, and to obtain any true statement of venereal disease among them, some estimate respecting this cla.s.s must be made. For this purpose the reports of Dr. T. Clarkson Moffatt, Physician-in-chief of the ”Seaman's Retreat,”

Staten Island, New York, are available. The number of cases treated in the several years is here given:

1854 657 1855 473 1856 355 1857 365 1858 (to April 1) 82

This is nearly twenty-four per cent. on the gross number treated.

This concludes the published reports of charitable inst.i.tutions, and the question next arises, What amount of syphilis is treated by physicians in private practice? It is impossible to obtain any reliable data upon this head. The Medical Board of Bellevue Hospital, composed of some of the leading members of the profession in the city, state that they ”are unable to say what proportion of the practice among regular and qualified physicians in this city is derived from the treatment of venereal diseases, but they know it is large, and that many receive more from this source than from all other sources together.”

There are also a very large number of advertising pretenders who offer their services for the treatment of secret diseases; and many drug-stores whose main business is derived from a similar source; together with an infinity of patent medicines announced and sold as specifics for all venereal maladies. Upon the simple commercial principle of supply and demand these are so many proofs of the extent of the evil they profess to relieve. Should the number of cases of venereal disease treated in private practice by qualified physicians and by advertisers, added to the number of patients who supply themselves with patent or other medicines from drug-stores, be regarded as equal to the aggregate of those treated in public inst.i.tutions, the estimate could not be deemed extravagant.

The design is now to ascertain how much venereal disease exists in New York at the present time, and to do this it will be necessary to recapitulate the information already given. The cases below are those treated in 1857:

Inst.i.tutions. Cases.

Penitentiary Hospital, Blackwell's Island 2090 Alms-house, Blackwell's Island 52 Work-house, Blackwell's Island 56 Penitentiary, Blackwell's Island 430 Bellevue Hospital, New York 768 Nursery Hospital, Randall's Island 734 New York State Emigrants' Hospital, Ward's Island 559 New York Hospital, Broadway 405 New York Dispensary, Centre Street 1580 Northern Dispensary, Waverley Place 327 Eastern Dispensary, Ludlow Street 630 Demilt Dispensary, Second Avenue 803 Northwestern Dispensary, Eighth Avenue 344 Medical Colleges 207 King's County Hospital, Flatbush, Long Island 311 Brooklyn City Hospital, Brooklyn, Long Island 186 Seaman's Retreat, Staten Island 365 ---- Total 9847

Medical men, and those acquainted with the internal arrangements of public inst.i.tutions, need not be reminded that the general system of record in hospitals includes only what may be called the prominent malady. Thus, if a man were admitted with a broken limb, it would be registered as a fracture; and if the same man were suffering indirectly from syphilis at the same time, no entry would be made thereof, although the physician rendered him every professional a.s.sistance toward its cure. It is estimated that in this manner a large number of the cases of venereal disease treated in all public inst.i.tutions, except such as make a specialty of those maladies, is never recorded elsewhere than on the private case-books of the attending physicians. More particularly is this the rule in inst.i.tutions supported wholly or in part by voluntary contributions. Their benevolent directors have not yet outlived the prejudice which formerly held it almost as disgraceful to treat as to contract syphilis. Some of the spirit which drove the unhappy men and women so afflicted from civilized life to perish in the fields or woods, as in London, Edinburgh, and Paris, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and at a later period drew from the Papal government a bull recognizing the affliction as a direct punishment from the Almighty for the sin of incontinence, still survives in the present generation. The trustees of more than one of the dispensaries in New York have directed their medical officers not to prescribe for such complaints, and a hospital in a sister city, which receives a yearly grant from public funds, has in its printed rules and regulations: ”No person having 'Gonorrhoea' or 'Syphilis' shall be admitted as a charity patient.” Some remarks are made hereafter upon this course, and the facts are mentioned now to explain why many cases of venereal disease never appear upon the reports of inst.i.tutions where patients are treated.

Practically such prohibitions are a dead letter. No physician of a public inst.i.tution, applied to by a poor wretch suffering from syphilis, could pa.s.s him by without attempting to relieve, let the orders of the board of trustees be what they may. His mission is simply to apply the aid of science and skill to the alleviation of any ailment which may be presented to his notice, and his appreciation of the responsibility of his office is too keen to allow him to refuse the prayer of such an applicant. Hence arises the circ.u.mstance that the case is treated under some other name.

If then the cases recorded are but two thirds of the aggregate, the numbers stand thus:

Cases recorded in public inst.i.tutions 9847 Cases not recorded 4923 ----- Total. 14770

cases in the year 1857 in public inst.i.tutions.

The difficulty of forming an opinion as to the extent of venereal disease treated in private practice has been already mentioned. In the absence of all information, collateral circ.u.mstances form the only guide to a conclusion. The amount is unquestionably very large; so large that, if its full magnitude could be discovered and announced, every reader must be astonished. The first consideration to support this view may be found in the army of advertising empirics who make it a source of revenue. Each of these men must have numerous patients; he could not keep up his business without them. Any practical advertiser knows that to insert an announcement of some twenty or thirty lines every day in at least two daily papers, to repeat the same in weekly journals, and, in addition to this, to post handbills on the corner of every street, and employ men or boys to deliver them to pa.s.sengers at steam-boat docks, ferry landings, and rail-road depots, can not be done without a considerable outlay, whatever its prospective advantages may be. No one supposes these charlatans to be actuated by pure disinterested benevolence. They crowd the columns of our journals, and insult us with their printed announcements in the public thoroughfares, simply because ”it pays.” These means obtain them customers, and whenever this result ceases the announcements will be discontinued. While they appear there is positive proof that their issuers are gathering patronage.

The number of patent medicines always in the market for the cure of secret diseases, and which the vendors announce ”can be sent any distance securely packed, and safe from observation,” affords a corroboration. They are made and sold as a business speculation. When their reputation diminishes, and the public become doubtful if all the virtues of the _materia medica_ are comprised in a single bottle of ”Red Drop,” or ”Unfortunate's Friend,” the manufacture will soon stop, and the inventors will resort to some other employment for their capital. The extent to which advertising empirics and patent medicines are flouris.h.i.+ng is an undeniable proof of the prevalence of the maladies they professedly relieve.

The legitimate business of drug-stores affords another link in the chain of evidence. Beyond the regular nostrums, almost every druggist in the city sells large quant.i.ties of medicine for the cure of venereal disease.

Sometimes a man will candidly tell the storekeeper that he has contracted disease, and ask him to make up something to cure it. At other times a prescription, which has been efficacious in a former attack, will be presented, or the sufferer has taken counsel among his friends and companions, and obtained some infallible recipe from one of them. In short, there are so many different means taken by persons who have contracted disease that it is impossible to enumerate the various methods in which the aid of the drug-store may be invoked.

There are many traditional recipes which can be used without the necessity of purchasing ingredients of a druggist. One favorite remedy among the lower cla.s.ses is ”Pine Knot Bitters.” Bottles of this preparation are kept for sale in liquor stores, particularly in those neighborhoods where prost.i.tutes ”most do congregate.”