war.  Yet the German army stands fairly high as regards freedom from venereal disease when compared with the British army which is more syphilized than any other European army.[230] The British army, however, being professional and not national, is less representative of the people than is the case in countries where some form of conscription prevails.  At one London hospital it could be ascertained that ten per cent. of the patients had had syphilis; this probably means a real proportion of about fifteen per cent., a high though not extremely high ratio.  Yet it is obvious that even if the ratio is really lower than this the national loss in life and health, in defective procreation and racial deterioration, must be enormous and practically incalculable.  Even in cash the venereal budget is comparable in amount to the general budget of a great nation.  Stritch estimates that the cost to the British nation of venereal diseases in the army, navy and Government departments alone, amounts annually to L3,000,000, and when allowance is made for superannuations and sick-leave indirectly occasioned through these diseases, though not appearing in the returns as such, the more accurate estimate of the cost to the nation is stated to be L7,000,000.  The adoption of simple hygienic measures for the prevention and the speedy cure of venereal diseases will be not only indirectly but even directly a source of immense wealth to the nation.

Syphilis is the most obviously and conspicuously appalling of the venereal diseases.  Yet it is less frequent and in some respects less dangerously insidious than the other chief venereal disease, gonorrhoea.[231] At one time the serious nature of gonorrhoea, especially in women, was little realized.  Men accepted it with a light heart as a trivial accident; women ignored it.  This failure to realize the gravity of gonorrhoea, even sometimes on the part of the medical profession—­so that it has been popularly looked upon, in Grandin’s words, as of little more significance than a cold in the nose—­has led to a reaction on the part of some towards an opposite extreme, and the risks and dangers of gonorrhoea have been even unduly magnified.  This is notably the case as regards sterility.  The inflammatory results of gonorrhoea are indubitably a potent cause of sterility in both sexes; some authorities have stated that not only eighty per cent. of the deaths from inflammatory diseases of the pelvic organs and the majority of the cases of chronic invalidism in women, but ninety per cent. of involuntary sterile marriages, are due to gonorrhoea.  Neisser, a great authority, ascribes to this disease without doubt fifty per cent, of such marriages.  Even this estimate is in the experience of some observers excessive.  It is fully proved that the great majority of men who have had gonorrhoea, even if they marry within two years of being infected, fail to convey the disease to their wives, and even of the women infected by their husbands more than half have children.