SYPHILIS: Next Great Plague to Go
D., THOMAS PARRAN. M.
SYPHILIS Next Great Plague to Go THE SURVEY GRAPHIC HAS PERMITTED THE NEW LEADER TO PRINT A DIGEST OP DR. PARRANS ARTICLE Off Sf PHIUS, THE WORST OF THE SOCIAL DISEASES. THOSE WHO HAVE THE...
...The patient usually knows from whom the disease was contracted...
...It went into the valuation as $12,000,000...
...priate for it...
...The rash may or may not be accompanied by falling hair, fever, sores in the mouth, headaches, indigestion or other symptoms ordinarily not connected with syphilis...
...Although associated in people's minds with styphHis as a venereal or sex-borne disease, gonorrhea has nothing else in common with it and is not the cause or forerunner of syphilis, as a surprisingly large number of people believe...
...All right...
...3) Those who strive to avoid dictatorship by promoting social and^eco nomic planning through democratic means...
...more among men, at the rate of 6 fj»r every 4 women infected...
...Tisee...
...It has been next to impossible to obtain adequate public funds for active control along lines proven so successful in the reduction of tuberculosis...
...Total tax eo>t>aita> palling for the care of the hatst...
...Surgeon General, United State* Public Health Service SYPHILIS is a contagious disease...
...Syphilis does a hundred times as much damage annually as infantile paralysis, for example...
...She thinks in terms of facts...
...In the first place, theet citizens •already are pejlsjT%ast taxes for the care «f negisetsd syphilis than it would east thm t» make syphilis as rare a tsssaWsa in Sweden...
...Mi* Thompson got her subconsciou bent from what she saw in Ger many and Russia...
...A railroad right of way that in 1884 had been valued at $6,000,000 was now-worth S60.000.000...
...t EFFECTIVE CONTROL ' OF THE DISEASE TPHE present status of the un-* savory situation is that dvilhel nations one by one have dropped the effort to regulate prostitstka and thereby control venereal Sis-ease, and have adopted the method of repressing organized vice, largely by taking away the profits froe it...
...although from time to time labor officials have expressed their willingness to have such examinations made by the health departments in order to pyotect union members from mjs-use of the information...
...perhaps when life insurance is refused because of organic heart disease...
...Public assistance may make the burden of such care somewhat less unfair to the doctor than it is at present...
...From my own findings I should estimate that hah* of sfl jyanffli infections have been acquired innocently...
...She's a good man...
...Syphilis attacked and disabled more than half a million persons...
...Its later stages, if untreated, may be as horrible to the onlooker and as agonizing and fatal to the victim...
...She hates it-She is right in hating it...
...Iron spikes that had cost 95 cents a keg were now worth $60,000,000...
...The railroad ques-' tton was commanding public heed: Gov- erner Charles Evans Hughes had vetoed a bill to limit' railroad fares in New York .State to two cents a mile: President Theodore Roosevelt was giving his justly cele¦ -brated slack wire exhibition, marvelously ' balanced between the public that more than ^•suspected the robberies perpetrated upon it l'-imd the ""powerful railroad companies that yftd'the-robbing...
...I would be far from having yes think that it is not of the utmost importance for us in the Uaind States to encourage the education of our young people to decent Being through sll means at the command of church, school, state sal voluntary agency...
...From the pohrfchasMa point of view it is not seeesssry s» corral all prostitutes or even te* feet a cure in each individual shV fering with syphilis...
...gisfaness about syphilis is the atti...
...throw Hberty, democracy and decency out of the window in order to make room for the five-year plan To them liberalism means polit-PM and economic cooperation without the sacrifice of liberty...
...if we csn desl with it sad discuss it as we would any other highly communicable disease, highly dangerous to the individual and burdensome to the public at large, I believe that there is no choice as to method...
...LIBERALS IN BAD COMPANY OUR first sort of American liberals have token this attitude and doctrine straight...
...Treatment mast be available to al infected...
...All the utilities went into it...
...bo vans tuberculosis...
...The first sign of syphilis is a sore or lesion at the^ point of contact with the infection which appears twelve to forty days after exposure...
...Not too long, however, will syphilis victims be content for us to argue about methodology...
...IN Scandinavia the outstsadrsf principle in the program of sfnV ili* control is that: "All infected with syphilis have a rsjj» to demand free treatment ^h*» equally are obliged to saeaalM* . treatment...
...3"he blood "Wassermann still is negative...
...If this matter of controlling syph...
...The effort to control syphfla by examination of prostitute* at it has been tried in many Bare-pean countries, and even now k occasionally advocated in the United States, is utterly inadequate t» meet even that 25 per cent of tat syphilis problem affected by commercial prostitution...
...tude of a large group of ctossss, many of them public spirited women, who honestly believe that eah-commercial prostitutes sad their clients are involved in this pmfelen...
...The gravity of syphilis and its danger to the community makes this principle as inevitable for syphilis, I believe, as for leprosy or cholera...
...People like Miss Thompson, real liberals of the...
...In getting under treatment people who have been exposed to syphilis—that is the families and other personal contacts of syphilis patients—and in organizing a far-flung coherent and effective educational campaign, It would be necessary to plan almost from the ground up...
...I need not go into the particulars of this gigantic shell game of "reproduction cost,' but a few examples will illustrate the process...
...If treatment is delayed only a few days or weeks the cures drop from 86 to 64 per cent...
...Human suffering would take care of itself...
...Our articles and speeches don't make sense because everyone makes his own pictures when he hears such words as liberal, Communist, Socialist, religion, justice, civilization, Fascist...
...It required no expert, it needed no "valuation" calculations, anv average intelligence could perform it for any corporation in the space of twenty-four hours...
...It has always seemed to me that there were two typical case histories, which are saddest of all in the grim record of syphilis...
...5,A's the President and his advisors are now ^fcagglirig with this historic hoax, we may jj^jf well to look into the source of it...
...2) Those who use liberalism to promote Communist dictatorship...
...IN estimating what we may bor* row from the methods of others in reducing syphilis, I should emphasize the Scandinavian principle which obligates the petient to take treatment as it does the state to provide such treatment...
...LIBERTY'S ENEMY, TOO CHE is not even conscious of the big^business organizations which are more dictatorial than the New Deal and which long ago put an end to the free economy which she so brilliantly defends...
...There is a third sort of liberal...
...After treading gingerly over the terrorism, the tyranny, the destruction of every individual right and...
...Theri is no American who speaks bette against dictatorship...
...It occurs in a multitude of sporadic epidemics, through single infections by personal contacts from victim to victim...
...It is oerjenT definite responsibility, howevee\* reach each case promptly r to rsaw that ease, its source and sDeia* tacta>noninfectious...
...the darkfield test is not made...
...Yet syphilis is a tremendous factor in compensation cases and directly responsible for many accidents...
...Actual money actually invested in the enterprise and no more mumbo jumbo...
...sometimes three to eight weeks...
...Syphilis control is today's job...
...There is more of it than measles, twice as much as tuberculosis, a hundred times as much as infantile paralysis...
...from the use of a recently soiled drinking cup, napkin or handkerchief...
...Their efforts, instead of tending to preserve liberty sre pushing toward breakdown and whatever things may come after...
...Here Is complete surrender to dictatorship in the interest of eco-' nomic planning...
...One haft the infections are in the age group twenty to thirty...
...The methods may be worked out to fit oar particular American need...
...These people think of themselves as liberals because they are touched by poverty and wneorprtryment, be-cause — vaguely — they have the Idea that they are trying to make things better...
...Just one more trick of the card sharpers, Mr...
...Another is that of the man or woman in whom symptoms are so mild as to be unobserved...
...old sort, should be lined up, with the Labor Party rather than with the Republicans...
...left in possession of their plunder...
...To support* such action Is the first responsibility of i government designed to promote the general welfare...
...Yet this false capitalization was .always cited as a reason why rates should .' b< high that there might be a "just and reasonable return...
...It went apace...
...This lyrical masterpiece occupied the leading spot in the Nation of November la...
...With free discussion forbidden it ha*, bees ,very -difficult to tesch people to avoid syphilis, to look out for early symptoms, and to get treatment when such symptoms are observed...
...Four times as much in the cities as in rural areas...
...They fell for Communism...
...Another still j-tuore fantastic and much more costly to the "^jfetitjei is the strange and unspeakably im-•'padent fake that is called Valuation...
...he is sent home and told to forget about it...
...ilis is taken seriously, the Wassermann test should be routine for all hospital admissions, whether for a ruptured appendix, a broken leg, or any other cause...
...The cost of living was in-Creasing, railroad freight rates were reflected in the price of virtually everything ¦ the poor man bought, railroad capitalization, real and phoney, mounted monthly, and^as it increased so rose the demand for rate increases...
...Unless treated, it is permanently disabling and frequently fatal...
...In patting thh^afiaj ciple to work four "¦JJfSL^S ¦laaflj prescribed through la w and regulation: All esses must be reported: All eases mas* fctht treatment...
...They see that we can't make things better without some sort of good management in the public interest...
...Further, even granted the hyesaV esis that syphilis were a resenaii of disease in the one lowest Meal class of the population, Tirlaithti insist that such disease atseyi filters through to the strata of population above It.* Outrageous as it assy sees, far of our young men and wsssja sit the age of twenty-one have nem been exposed to the risk of syphilis...
...Syphilis must be the next great plsgue to go...
...Failure on the constructive side lines the most vigilant and intelligent liberals up with the feal dictators...
...THE attitude of industry on syph* ilis case finding ranges from intelligent cooperation to complete indifference...
...If private physicians and health officers once get the idea of urgency in their handling of early 3yphilis cases, detailed methods of procedure will be easy to work out...
...HANDICAPS TO TREATMENT f\F particular significance to con-trol is the fact that although a cure requires many months of treatment, diagnosis of the disease is easily made as soon as it becomes infectious and the arsphena-mines end infectiousness promptly...
...From a public health viewpoint, the methods are simple...
...It means the increase of economic and social efficiency within the framework of democracy...
...But more than nioney we need for this task devoted men and women who believe in it and who are not afraid of it...
...But they have got themselves lined up with such strange partners that the people of 1937 will hardly hear them...
...Patients must stay under treatment until they can no longer ransmit the disease...
...The analyses of railroad capitalization jrevealed startling facts...
...If we can free our minds of the medieval concept that syphilis is the just reward of sin...
...She knows i down to the ground, its psychology its administration, all its effects But when Dorothy Thompson dis cusses President Roosevelt and th< New Deal her hatred of dictator ship amounts to a psychologies complex...
...Perhaps a sudden heart attack, the stumbling gait of locomotor ataxia, the irritability and delusions of general paresis, failure of vision preceding total blindness first brings knowledge of the mad dog infection which has, at last, a strangle hold...
...Land in Chicago that a railroad company had bought in 1867 for $12,000 was now valued at $12,000,000...
...The insurance company which issued policies only to non-syphilitics could lower its rates substantially...
...President...
...The Old Liberalism Against Current American Offshoots By WILLIAM E. BOHN TTHERE are three kinds of lib-* erals in America, and two of them are a couple of shades worse than useless...
...Until very recently there was little or no discussion of syphilis as a public health menace...
...decency, the author ends On a note of triumph: 'There Is no longer anyone who predicts the early overthrow of the werM** first Socialist state...
...And yet they will ?alV for a swindle as big as a church } andjbj...
...In spite of these facts which, theoretically, make even the eradication of syphilis possible, the syphilis rate in this country is sTbt declining...
...Of the other haM, acquired ¦ ik venery, jnsaj tyshfirihtfits believe that the com isei Jar jsssatats and the clandestine love affair probably contribute an equal skill...
...If deafanahle for the protection of contorts, patients must be hospitalized...
...gO he put forth the idea that there should , he a physical aluation of the railroads, rates should be based upon this valuation, '. apid *his valuation to be based upon some-.thing called "reproduction cost...
...A station that had cost $7,000 would now cost S20.000 to "reproduce," and so on...
...No oat essM deny that most prostitutes are da-eased and that prostitution adds • tremendous momentum to the lysk...
...There a^e, then, three sorts of liberals in America: (1) Those wha use liberalism as a defence for economic dictators...
...How comes it that sp easily are certain - Colossal Fakes imposed upon the American ' :people ? i Any jaundiced supposition that the in-habitants of this country are by nature Vluller than the average of mankind, more ~tnaTve, more susceptible to trickery, falls in 1 upon itself...
...discourse I mentioned as one -of *ifeeae huge buncoes the notion that the attempt-' to restrict Big Business in its melon cutting activities causes "slumps," -tlnejnplojrroent, dust storms, droughts, v-eorns, bunions, warts, sinus troubles, cfiil-blains and infantile paralysis...
...I shall begin with definitions in plain words...
...Moreover, we know where syphilis is...
...I* my Ust...
...It appeared that .from one-third to one-haLL* was clearly -fictitious...
...Actual money and no melons, no stock dividends, no "benefits...
...At this perilous juncture, when more and more the public was demanding that the water be squeezed out of the capitalization upon which rates were based, some inspired gerfius thought of a way by which the railroad loot could be preserved and the looters bi...
...Any man who accepts whatever his'party or his *kfc» perpetrates has his feet straight on the road to the leadership principle—whether Communist or Fascist reaHy doesn't matter...
...bat no more money than the communities can be educated to use wisely...
...The things dor people have feeght fee and which these very peeps* defend in the Civil Liberties Uahin they rationalize away...
...I Bey cows nerp is dot oenne its gatf and, perhaps, steer ft 'round paste f stare dangers...
...Frequently when I have been talking about the need for control of syphilis, someone says: "That would be fine if we could afford it, but the problem is so huge that the cost would be far too great to do anything -now...
...To a reasonable return upon this amount no one would object...
...the Power Trust so heavily that today it is estimated to have something like one and a half billion dollars of fictitious capitalization, all legalized on the pretense of "reproduction cost'"—and expert bookkeeping...
...Usually sex contact is involved, although an abundance of cases are on record in which the disease has been incurred from kissing...
...And the Supreme Court of the United States solemnly laid upon this process the apostolic blessing o*f its approval and bade the good work go on...
...When other diseases were mentioned in radio health talks the very word syphilis was omitted by command of the broadcasting company...
...The Wassermann test would have far more significance than a urinalysis in insurance examinations...
...arteries, brain and bone are favorite sites...
...in receiving services from a diseased person, such as a nursemaid, barber, or beauty shop operator...
...Bat there can't be a "just and reasonable return" upon moonshine, and this fact was beginning to take strong hold upon the ¦public mind...
...It may not be very painful and may run a slow course...
...What is the actual status of case finding and early treatment in our own country...
...So steadily is she transfixe< by this horrid vision that she hai no eyes for the depression, the poverty, the unemployment againsi which the President is struggling She never feels called upon to propose alternative measures...
...And all the time this huge and costly farce was being enacted, there existed a plain, simple, inexpensive, perfectly honest' method upon which rates and returns could have been based...
...Ascertain how much actual money was actually invested in the enterprise...
...Yet health departments everywhere have been concentrating their major efforts on the plagues which now are minor...
...six times as much among Negroes as among whites...
...and to treat »P syphilitic pregnant women, ***** can absolutely prevent transsthso* of the disease from mother to anM-This is the only way to hriag » disease under control in fts eat-demic aspect, which is a uilsaWT public health responsibility ef »* states and federal government...
...By THOMAS PARRAN...
...Patients and contacts of patients must be required to take treatment immediately: both for their own sake and for the sake of the community, which must be , protected against syphilis infection...
...But with ,joy the railroads seized upon it...
...Or, rather, a free economy would take care of it automat-i ically...
...Second, they are wrong whs look at syphilis as exclusively » corollary of organized vice...
...Certainly we need money to fight" syphilis...
...Yet any good sysh-ilologist could tell yen, if he wosM, that not infrequently the ddssssjn of grandeur arising from etrb/ paregis result in the lack of jasr-ment which pyramids watereditsfk upon watered stock,- ruthlessly SB-regards stockholders' interests sal is responsible for many of tat business tragedies we experience...
...PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT and his advisors are now reported to be fiddling around with some device called "prudent investment" as a way to meet the fictitious and extortionate rate problems provided bv the utility companies...
...The Jeffersonians represented the same ideal on this side of the water...
...It is responsible for more than 10 per cent of all insanity, 18 per cent of all diseases of the heart and Wood vessels, for many of the still-births and the deaths of babies in the first weeks of life...
...Americans Fall for 'Shell Game' Of Shrewd Utility Corporations By CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL • Y\NE psychological mystery has for years -v: -ba|fted any analysis I have been able to "bfrag to it...
...Irow to anybody capable of the least re-ftectinn, this was so transparent »a fraud that it seemed merely comical...
...and in giving services, such as those of a dentist, doctor or nurse, to a diseased person...
...Taking them by and large, my observation is that they are among the most ' intelligent of earth's children...
...If adequate treatment is begun in this primary stage the disease can be cured in 86 per cent of all cases...
...Besides the gouge of the Power Trust, the railroads are campaigning for another increase of $500,000,000 a year in their rates, which will be a billion dollars when it reaches the householder...
...from a pipe or cigarette...
...yet we can cure most of it...
...SURRENDER to wctatohs TIE approach of the entire group is well displayed in Maxwell SUwaifs paean to Soviet Russia on its twentieth birthday...
...In America, nothing suceeds like thimble, rig, if it is on a great scale...
...la tors have been loth t« spar...
...She constantly seei Stalin or Hitler hiding in his coat tails...
...He figured that if anything good—reason, justice, taste—was to be preserved each man must have an even break when he stands up to defend himself against the crude and cruel hand of the tyrant or of the mob...
...There is reason to believe that if all conditions due to syhpilis were reported as such, it would be found the leading cause of death in the United States...
...Yet of all the forty-eight states, onry in New York, and there but recently, does the state assume responsibility for stopping syphilis epidemics at the source...
...ilis problem...
...So Mill was all for civil liberties and against government regulation...
...I am wholeheartedly an advocate of every effort in this direction, yet I feel that we are criminally earslaw V we rest our case for the ceetrei of syphilis solely upon such effort After a careful scrutiny ef <** moral results attained taroajhesf reform efforts to date, I ssseeeate to the conclusion that it is umeh easier to control syphilis hy ¦*•*> mg Wassermann tests Bjajrinehr *** the age groups needing^ "f^f^j ing that treatment is oatstoet by all who require it, thai fcJM* alter the way of life ef S P**P*-For this must be mads ^ow about syphilis: The hose efeav trol lies in breaking the ehshi < infection st its weakest llnhj** early case...
...Business monopoly was as yet unborn...
...joV-BOUT thirty years ago...
...If the eradication of syphilis were to be my one official duty during the next twenty years I should attempt it very confidently iris* t^stfjgt y^yp^ff osnissg ssavjstst taesete jsassttas a single animal JtssawS...
...Wherever the germ has multiplied in the body there the tissues are destroyed...
...There are some in high places, Secretary Wallace, Secretary Iekes, Harry Hopkins, are practical people...
...All to support fictitious capitalization, ;melons, benefits and rackets out of which the great fortunes are made...
...A station that had cost cents each would now cost $2 to reproduce...
...It went into the valuation as $5,000,000...
...In the days of John Stuart Mill a liberal was a man who realized that the precious things of civilization exist in the individual...
...As a people we are not insensitive to human needs once we understand them...
...Foremost among American handicaps -to progress against syphilis is the widespread belief that nice people don't talk about syphilis, nice people don't have syphilis, and nice people shouldn't do anything about those who have syphilis...
...If physicians as a group, however, do not wish to shoulder the load *>f syphilis treatment for the borderline but not indigent case, the probable alternative is the extension of the free and part-pay clinics now found in connection with some hospitals but only in the larger cities or teaching centers...
...The answer to that chaHeafe h three-fold...
...So hei really fine pieces of social analysis are, in the end, arguments for the old Hoover policy of let 'er rip...
...THE MAD DOG OF CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OYPHILIS has always seemed to me the mad dog of the communicable diseases and needs as swift action to control it...
...The public accepted this balderdash as truth and settled into the comfortable coma perfectly adapted to efficient robbery...
...Another great factor ta our shw...
...the liberals, new style, may here seen practical reformers under Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson, hat when Moscow passed • miracle so we thing happened to them...
...BIG BUSINESS...
...Think of Herbert Hoover, the late Ogden Mills, Dorothy Thompson, Walter Lispmann and William Allen White...
...One is that of the young person who suspects he may have been exposed to syphilis and goes promptly to a doctor for examination...
...One adult in ten is infected by it at some time during- his or her lifetime...
...The scientific circumstances surrounding syphilis^oint to our potential ability to stamp it out more effectively than we have typhoid...
...Not only does the rate of syphilis continue so high in the United States that it may in time be known as the great American disease, but in addition our efforts at control compare unfavorably with the British and the Scandinavian results because so small a percentage of cases (about one in ten) get treatment in the readily curable stage...
...What, then, are the specific steps through which we may hope to reverse the trend of syphilis in the United States during our generation ? Therejs very general agreement concerning action needed for effective syphilis control: It would involve a vast extension and improved efficiency of what we now do to find and treat people who have syphilis...
...Our children will hold us criminally csreless end incompetent if, with the means at hand, we fail to end this scourge within our generation...
...It Is s job for the whole people which ean be done only with their understanding and cooperation...
...Fear that the test would be a pretext for dismissal by the employer has led some labor unions to fight routine Wassermanns in physical examinations...
...By the same token, tsgfc...
...Nothing at all is suspected in either type of case until the awful period at which the late syphilis appears: perhaps when a syphilitic baby is born...
...the feebleminded, the trims, the m-employable, the criminal, (he degraded, and the dettnqeent whose condition results direct]j from syphilis itself and hahreeuy as the social result of famines shattered by syphilis...
...THOSE WHO HAVE THE INTERESTS OP THE VAST PUBLIC AT HEART ARE FIGHTING — ALONG UNES SUGGESTED BY DR...
...Liberty is next to nothing, and morals shift matter...
...PARRAN —TO WIPE IT OUT —AGAINST THEM ARE ARRAYED THE BLUE-NOSE FORCES OF THE PRESS, THE RADIO, movies, schools AND OTHER MEANS OF EDUCATION AND PROPAGANDA...
...So we have a startling spectacle...
...Alertness toward syphilis has been shown by several of the railroad systems which make routine blood tests for syphilis as a part of the periodic physical examinations of employees...
...Stuart Chase said at the recent Book Fair that most of us are just tossing words...
...It can be summarized in three words: scattered, sporadic, and inadequate...
...We must attack it now...
...no fakes, no frauds, no rackets...
...The attention of liberals centered on the mercantilism which shackled business and on the state paternalism which shackled people...
...Men who call themselves liberals sail the accomplishments of Joseph Stalin and rather hope that their little group will one day produce » nice little Stalin for America...
...Whereupon up went from the whole patchouli press one glad, glad shout that investigation had proved there was no water in railroad capitalization, that the vile muckrakers had been forever refuted and that the high rail rates were absolutely justified...
...EQUIPMENT that had originally cost . *"* $1,000,000 would now cost $5,000,000 to "reproduce...
...She thinks straight...
...Remember that a kiss may carry the germ...
...a group of ^^^rWriters on economics was engaged in •analyzing the capitalizations of the chief L railroads of the country...
...Only within-a year or two has the word) appeared in the headlines of metropolitan newspapers...
...Although there is no sharp demarcation between the primary and secondary stages, the second stage of classical syphilis is characterized by skin eruptions, which may look like measles, a food rash, or a light case of chicken pox...
...Miss Thompson is the best oi them...
...and tide make no difference...
...It means progress in planning so paced as to carry with it the will of the people...
...fssMkvaa, a barn door...
...NOT A COROLLARY OF ORGANIZED VICE IN addition, philanthropists have * been afraid to donate funds for research in syphilis, though such funds have been readily available for almost every other cause, under ¦ the sun from leprosy to whsssJsx: {cough...
...There are no explosive outbreaks...
...What was good enough for great-grandfather is good enough for them...
...By and large, sooner of later, the people's money in this democracy of ours is spent for what the people want...
...Alfred Bingham is the first who senses to mind...
...Syphilis control Is not the business of the public health officer alone nor yet of the private physieian or the social worker...
...But they are unwilling to...
...It is of vital importance to every house-: hold...
...Bat all that they say and do is against liberalism...
...the newspapers that the railroads kept hailed it Vociferously as the lorlg-sought solution of the-", railroad problem, ^Congress fell for it,,-ted with joy unconfinid the railroad plun-"7 ^pHPprjr^Urted to make,) their valuations, i? Of course, it was a poor accounting department of any railroad that couldn't make the "reproduction cost" of the company's possessions equal or exceed the company s capitalization, frauds, fakes and melons included...
...They have a vital message for our time...
Vol. 20 • December 1937 • No. 49
