THE PREVENTION OF VENEREAL

DISEASES.

We have much pleasure in calling the attention of our readers to the rules of the Utah State Board of Health for the Prevention of Blindness in Newly Born Infants. As also a copy of Report of Venereal Diseases to be used by Physicians and Others Who Treat Venereal Diseases.-Chapter 61, Sec. 1.

It shall be the duty of every physician and every mid-wife attending a case of child-birth to report to the local Board of Health every case where the newly born child has inflammation of the eyes attended by a discharge therefrom. Such report to be made. within six hours after the appearance of such disease. It shall be the duty of such physician or midwife to treat the eyes of the child so afflicted in accordance with the rules of the State Board of Health. Every physician and midwife failing to comply with the provisions of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

In conformity with the foregoing enactment, the State Board of Health has adopted the following rules to be of general application throughout the state:

Rule 1.-No midwife shall treat any case of ophthalmia neonatorum or inflammation of the eyes of a newly born infant unless it is impossible to secure the services of a physician, provided that in case the services of a physician shall be secured, a midwife may begin and carry out the treatment until his arrival.

Rule 2.-In the event that the services of a physician cannot be secured, midwives are authorized to use and apply the following treatment:

Immediately upon the discovery in a newly born infant of an inflammation of the eyes, attended by a mattery discharge therefrom five (5) drops of twenty per cent (20%) solution of argyrol shall be dropped into the eyes.

with an eye dropper, after having separated the lids with the thumb and finger; and this treatment shall be repeated every hour for four (4) days, and longer if a discharge is still present. After four (4) days if the discharge has ceased the treatment may be reduced in frequency to intervals of four (4) times daily for several days, until it is shown that the discharge is not liable to return.

Before each application of the argyrol solution, the eyes should be thoroughly irrigated and cleansed by dropping or pouring into them a one per cent (1%) solution of boric acid. For practical purposes, the salt solution may be prepared by dissolving one teaspoonful of salt in a pint of water.

NOTE. The person treating the eyes should exercise the utmost care to avoid touching the cornea (eye ball), as there is great danger of causing serious injury thereby. In applying the treatment the child should be placed flat upon its back and the head held so that the solution will not quickly escape from the eyes.

Inasmuch as the secretions from the eyes are very infectious, care should be taken to destroy all articles contaminated by them, and to sterilize the hands after each treatment.

The treatment above described is considered by eminent authorities to be entirely effective and safer than solutions of nitrate of silver; and it is recommended to all physicians in general practice.

Solutions of argyrol quickly deteriorate and should be freshly prepared for every case. Upon request the State Board of Health will furnish materials for preparing fresh solutions.

It is recommended that physicians and midwives shall make one application of the argyrol solution at the birth of every child as a prophylactic or preventive treatment, after having first thoroughly wiped the eyes with absorbent cotton or soft clean linen and

Physicians

Chapter 90, Section 1. and Superintendents of Hospitals to Report Cases. It shall be the duty of every physician in this state, every superintendent or manager of a hospital or public institution in this state, to immediately report to the local Board of Health every case of veneral disease which he is called upon to treat or which is in such hospital or public institution, and each and every physician, superintendent or manager of such hospital or institution shall make such reports as may be called for by the rules and regulations of the State Board of Health of this state, and must comply with all the rules and regulations made by said Board to prevent the spread of venereal diseases. Provided, that the report of such venereal disease shall not include the name of the person af flicted.

Sec. 2. Rules and Regulations. It shall be the duty of all Boards of Health to enact and enforce rules and regulations necessary to prevent the spread of venereal diseases.

Name of Physician.

NOTE. Physicians are urged to explain the contagious principles of venereal diseases and the necessary precautions to be observed in the various stages to avoid communicating them. Additional report blanks will be furnished upon application to the State Board of Health.

THE UTAH LAW IN RELATION TO QUARANTINE AND REPORTS BY PHYSICIANS.

We print in full a recent letter issued by the Utah State Board of Health. It should be carefully treasured by all physicians whose duty it is to carry out these provisions for the safety of the public. The majority have complied with past laws on these subjects, but many have not, hence the necessity for more stringent provisions.

You will find enclosed copy of the official quarantine rules adopted by the State Board of Health in accordance with the recent law. Please preserve the same for your future information and guidance. Also find rules adopted by the Board relating to the treatment of ophthalmia neonatorum. It will be noted that the latter rules as applying to physicians are merely advisory.

Your attention is called to the section in the recently enacted medical practice law which provides for revocal of the license of physicians for wilful failure to report births and deaths and contagious diseases. It is hoped that there will be no occasion to invoke this provision of law. All physicians appreciate the importance of accurate and complete registration of vital statistics and will co-operate with those officials whose duty it is to secure the same. The duty of the State Board of

Health and local registrars in connection with the enforcement of the law as set forth in the following copy of a letter received from the attorney general: "In reply to your favor of the 15th inst., requesting to be advised as to the duties of the State Board of Health, in connection with the recently enacted medical practice. law relating to the revocation of the license of physicians for failure to report births and deaths, etc., will say that the last legislature passed an act (Chapter 93, Laws of Utah, 1911) relating to physicians and surgeons, and as amendatory of the Laws of Utah, 1907, treating the same subject.

The amendatory act, as contained in Section 1763 of the new law, adds as additional ground of unprofessional conduct, the following: 'Wilful violation of the law in regard to the registration of births and deaths and the reporting of infectious diseases.'

"Under this subdivision any physician failing to report births and deaths in the manner and at the time required by Sections 2034, 2035 and 2436x4, Laws of Utah, 1907, is guilty of unprofessional conduct as defined in the new

act above quoted, and a revocation of his license can be had by compliance with the terms of Section 1735, Laws of Utah, 1911, which section in substance provides that proceedings for such purpose shall be commenced in the District court, be tried by the judge thereof, and upon proof of such unprofessional conduct an order shall be entered by the judge revoking the license of the physician and an injunction shall be issued perpetually enjoining him from practicing medicine or surgery in this state, and that such action shall be commenced in the name of the Board of Medical Examiners as plaintiff, and that the complaint may be sworn to

either by a member of the board or by a private party.

"I am of the opinion that it is the duty of the State Board of Health, through its state and local registrars, to see that the provisions of the new law, so far as relates to reports of births and deaths and infectious diseases, be enforced, and if violated, direct the commencement of legal proceedings in the name of the Board of Medical Examiners for the cancellation of the license of the offending physician.

(Signed) "E. V. HIGGINS, "Assistant Attorney General.”

For the benefit of those who have not been informed of the fact, notification is again given that an examination free of charge will be made by the state bacteriologist of all specimens submitted from cases of suspected tuberculosis or diphtheria and also the widal test. Specimens should be sent to the state bacteriologist, University, Salt Lake City. Mailing cases and blanks will be furnished by the bacteriologist upon application and properly filled-in blanks should accompany all specimens, otherwise examination will

not be made.

Notification of venereal diseases in accordance with the recent law should be made on enclosed forms. It is hoped that physicians will cheerfully comply, with this law in recognition of the statistical value of the returns and their benefit in directing preventive measures against the ravages of venereal maladies.

Note the enclosed circulars pertaining to the free antitoxin in cases of indigents.

Yours very truly,

T. B. BEATTY, Secretary.

Yes, literally, a kiss of death---a death the most loathsome, and accompanied by long-drawn period of torture, both mental and physical, compared with which the tortures of the savage are merciful-death dealt to those who most love and trust us, and whom we would die for rather than suffer to meet the hellish fate, and yet we must through conventional dictum or mawkish prudery suffer the cause to run rampant and under cover

The serpents of India slay annually 20,000 persons, but the death comes in merciful quickness, while in this enlightened civilization, of which we are so boastful, allow the manifoldly more numerous list to run rampant, and are expected to hold our tongues in strict

leash.

I refer to the Black Plague of venereal disease, gonorrhoea and syphilis. Since 1880, the former has changed from a local to a constitutional disease, and the sufferer, himself supposedly cured, then marries an innocent, virtuous, loving woman, and having infected her, visits upon her the burden of sterility and invalidism.

Not to the perverted of womanhood, who in bestial desire for sexual pleasure without maternity, must we look for the majority of race suicide, but in the husbands whose vas deferens have been occluded, or to those women who have had the obscure form of the gonococci infection implanted in normal marital intercourse and have suffered resulting ovarian or fallopian inflammation, must we lay the majority of sterility.

Dr. Prince Morrow, the veteran medical pioneer for social decency, says:

"We may well ask why certain infectious diseases are elevated to the dignity of a danger to the public health

and every effort made to prevent their spread, while another class of diseases, compared with which the morbidity of the former is but a mole hill to a mountain, is completely ignored."

And when he went to the health department of New York City and asked that literature pointing the grave danger of this class of infections be sent out to the young, but from administration after administration he was refused on the ground that such circulars "would offend the moral sensibilities of the community."

Dr. J. N. Hurty, the radical reformer of the Indiana State Board of Health, went after the Legislature and asked for an appropriation for a similar circular, and was refused, for the same reason, and then, determined not to be balked, took from his contingent fund the necessary money, and had the circulars printed at the shop of a state institution, where printing is one of the trades taught to the inmates, and issued the circular, which is now in its sixtieth thousand, and the public greedily seeks its information. This circular can be secured by addressing the State Board of Health, at Indianapolis, and enclosing a two-cent stamp for postage.

Allow me to relate a typical case. J. M. was a young man of one of the oldest of the leading families, and was 'one of the boys;' a splendid young man; and while 'sowing his wild oats' contracted gonorrhoea, which was supposedly cured.

He entered a profession and succeeded in establishing a reputation as a leader, though there was a tendency to ill health that puzzled those who knew the vigorous stock from whence he sprung.

He married a beautiful, talented,