problem of sexual disease, and German sentiment on these matters is developing so fast that it is difficult, even for those in touch with such matters, to keep pace with it.  In this country progress has been much slower, hampered by peculiarities of mental outlook and tradition very different from those which have controlled the thought of Europe.  The association of syphilis with prostitution has been largely instrumental in putting much valuable statistical and general knowledge of the disease into semi-private reports and sources not available to the large mass of the thinking public.  The effect of finding the problem of syphilis invariably bound up with discussions of the social evil has been to perpetuate in popular thought an association which simply blocks the way to any solution of the public health problem.  While the control of prostitution will influence syphilis, ignoring syphilis, or treating it as incidental, will never contribute anything to the conquest of either.  It is one of the most significant features of the great movements now on foot all over the world that they have finally adopted the direct route, and are attacking syphilis and gonorrhea as diseases and not by way of their association with prostitution.

The agencies in this country which are making notable efforts to push the campaign against syphilis and gonorrhea deserve every possible support from the thinking public.  The American Social Hygiene Association is a clearing-house for trustworthy information in regard to the problems of sexual disease, and publishes a quarterly journal.[16] The National Committee for Mental Hygiene and its branch societies are also engaged in spreading knowledge of the relation of syphilis to mental disease and degeneration.  State and City Boards of Health are active in their efforts to further the campaign, and notable work is being done by New York City, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Rochester, New York, both on publicity and in the provision of facilities for recognizing and treating the diseases in question.  Certain states, such as Ohio, Michigan, and Vermont, have made steps toward an intelligent legislative attack on different aspects of the problem.  Influential newspapers and magazines have made the idea of a campaign against these diseases familiar enough to the public, for example, to bring a young girl to me to ask outright without affectation that she be told about syphilis, because she had seen the word in the paper and did not fully understand it.  The aggregate of these forces is large, and an awakening is inevitable.

    [16] Social Hygiene, New York.

To prepare ourselves for an active and intelligent share in the movement, we should review briefly the essential elements of a public campaign against syphilis as they have been developed by recent investigations and legislative experiments.