+Undesirable and Freak Legislation.+—­Syphilis has had a limited amount of recognition in law, unfortunately not always wise or timely.  Freak legislation and half-baked schemes are the familiar preliminaries which precede the grim onset of a real attack supported by public sentiment.  Typical examples of such premature legislation may be found in the setting up of the Wassermann test as evidence of fitness for marriage by certain states, and in the efforts of certain official agencies to enforce the reporting of syphilis and gonorrhea by name.  Proposals to quarantine and placard all syphilis are in the same category, though seriously entertained by some.  The plan to establish by state enactment or municipal appropriation special venereal hospitals falls in the same class, since it is obvious that in the present state of opinion none but down-and-outs would resort to them.  The stigma attached to them would effectually make them useless to the very group of worth-while people which it is to the public interest to conserve and reeducate.

+Value of Conservative Action.+—­It cannot be said too often that a reasonable conservatism should temper the ardor of reformers, or more harm than good will be done by the collapse and failure of ill-considered special legislation.  Unified action against syphilis and gonorrhea as public health problems is as important as unified action on the problems of railroad control, child labor, or corporate monopoly.  For that reason it is a matter of some uncertainty how much can be accomplished by individual states in this country in the way of restrictive legislation, such as that controlling the marriage of infected persons, or punishing persons who fail to carry treatment to the point of cure.  Under the direction of a national bureau or department of health administration there is no doubt that the movement against syphilis would advance at a much more rapid pace than with the sporadic and scattered activities of mixed state and private agencies.

+The Essential Features of a Modern Campaign.+—­The repeated sifting of the facts which has been done in recent years by important investigations, such as that of the Sydenham Commission in Great Britain and the Society for Combatting Sexual Disease in Germany, and the legislative programs already mentioned, have gradually crystallized into fairly definite form, the undoubted essentials of a program for controlling venereal diseases, syphilis among them.  These may be summarized as follows: 

1.  The provision of universally available good treatment, at the expense of the state, if necessary, for the diseases in question.

2.  The provision by the state of efficient means of recognizing the diseases at the earliest possible time and with the greatest possible certainty in any given case.

3.  The suppression of quack practice, drug-store prescribing, and advertising of cures for these diseases.

4.  Moral and educational prophylaxis and the vigorous suppression of prostitution.