Statistics available for conditions among the American Expeditionary Forces must be treated with great caution.  Detection of these diseases at certain stages is extremely difficult.  Because of the courtesy extended to our men by our allies, cases were treated in French and English hospitals of which no record is available.  But it is fairly safe to say that there was no such prevalence of disease as was shown by the Exner Report to have existed on the Mexican Border.  It may even be predicted that the education in hygienic measures which the men received may in time affect favourably the health of the male population and through them their wives and children.  But all who came in contact with this problem in the army know that it is a long way to the understanding of the difficulties involved before we approach a solution.  We do know, on the basis of the work, of Neisser, Lesser, Forel, Flexner and others, that regulation and supervision seem to increase the incidence of disease.  Among the reasons for this are:  (1) difficulties of diagnosis; (2) difficulties attendant on the apprehension and examination of prostitutes; (3) the infrequency of examination as compared with the number of clients of these women; and perhaps as important as any of these reasons is the false sense of security involved.

The model woman of the past has known very little of the prostitute and venereal disease.  It is often stated that her moral safety has been maintained at the expense of her fallen and unclean sister.  But such statements are not limited as they should be by the qualification that her moral safety obtained in such a fashion is often at the expense of her physical safety.  If the assumption has a basis in fact that there is a relation between prostitution and monogamic marriage, the complexity of the problem becomes evident.  It is further complicated by the postponement of marriage from economic reasons, hesitation at the assumption of family responsibilities at a time of life when ambition as well as passion is strong, when the physiological functions are stimulated by city life and there is constant opportunity for relief of repression for a price.  It is here that the demarcation between the man’s and the woman’s world shows most clearly.  It may well be that the only solution of this problem is through the admission of a new factor—­the “good” woman whom taboo has kept in ignorance of a problem that is her own.  If it be true that the only solution for the double standard whose evils show most plainly here is a new single standard which has not yet been found, then it is high time that we find what that standard is to be, for the sake of the future.