feature of the present system is, however, that the sanitary authorities are now exclusively medical.  Everyone, whatever his social or financial position, is entitled to the free treatment of venereal disease.  Whether he avails himself of it or not, he is in any case bound to undergo treatment.  Every diseased person is thus, so far as it can be achieved, in a doctor’s hands.  All doctors have their instructions in regard to such cases, they have not only to inform their patients that they cannot marry so long as risks of infection are estimated to be present, but that they are liable for the expenses of treatment, as well as the dangers suffered, by any persons whom they may infect.  Although it has not been possible to make the system at every point thoroughly operative, its general success is indicated by the entire reliance now placed on it, and the abandonment of the police regulation of prostitution.  A system very similar to that of Denmark was established some years previously in Norway.  The principle of the treatment of venereal disease at the public expense exists also in Sweden as well as in Finland, where treatment is compulsory.[243]

It can scarcely be said that the principle of notification has yet been properly applied on a large scale to venereal diseases.  But it is constantly becoming more widely advocated, more especially in England and the United States,[244] where national temperament and political traditions render the system of the police regulation of prostitution impossible—­even if it were more effective than it practically is—­and where the system of dealing with venereal disease on the basis of public health has to be recognized as not only the best but the only possible system.[245]

In association with this, it is necessary, as is also becoming ever more widely recognized, that there should be the most ample facilities for the gratuitous treatment of venereal diseases; the general establishment of free dispensaries, open in the evenings, is especially necessary, for many can only seek advice and help at this time.  It is largely to the systematic introduction of facilities for gratuitous treatment that the enormous reduction in venereal disease in Sweden, Norway, and Bosnia is attributed.  It is the absence of the facilities for treatment, the implied feeling that the victims of venereal disease are not sufferers but merely offenders not entitled to care, that has in the past operated so disastrously in artificially promoting the dissemination of preventable diseases which might be brought under control.

If we dispense with the paternal methods of police regulation, if we rely on the general principles of medical hygiene, and for the rest allow the responsibility for his own good or bad actions to rest on the individual himself, there is a further step, already fully recognized in principle, which we cannot neglect to take:  We must look on every person as accountable for the venereal diseases he transmits.  So long as we