and with nothing but gain to the human race.

It is easier to accept this point of view, that the stamping out of
syphilis will not affect our ability to grapple with moral problems, and
that there is nothing to be gained by refusing to do what can so easily
be done, when we appreciate the immense amount of innocent suffering for
which the disease is responsible. It must appeal to many as a bigoted
and narrow virtue, little better than vice itself, which can derive any
consolation in the thought that the sins of the fathers are being
visited upon the children, as it watches a half-blind, groping child
feel its way along a wall with one hand while it shields its face from
the sunlight with the other. There are better ways of paying the wages
of sin than this. Best of all, we can attack a sin at its source instead
of at its fulfilment. How much better to have kept the mother free from
syphilis by giving the father the benefit of our knowledge. The child
who reaped his sowing gained nothing morally, and lost its physical
heritage. Its mother lost her health and perhaps her self-respect.
Neither one contributes anything through syphilis to the uplifting of
the race. They are so much dead loss. To teach us to avoid such losses
is the legitimate field of preventive medicine.

On this simplified and practical basis, then, the remainder of this
discussion will proceed. Syphilis is a preventable disease, usually
curable when handled in time, and its successful management will depend
in large part upon the coöperation, not only of those who are victims of
it, but of those who are not. It is much more controllable than
tuberculosis, against which we are waging a war of increasing
effectiveness, and its stamping out will rid humanity of an even greater
curse. To know about syphilis is in no sense incompatible with clean
living or thinking, and insofar as its removal from the world will rid