in which either syphilis or gonorrhea is active should leave or discharge be granted until the infectious period is over.  Compelling infected men to remain in the army under military discipline until cured might have a deterrent effect upon promiscuous exposure.  In addition we should create as rapidly as possible a mechanism for keeping inactive cases under surveillance after discharge until there can no longer be the slightest doubt as to their fitness to reenter civil life.  Observers of European conditions in the population at large are emphatic in saying that home conditions must have as much attention as the army, and that suppression of open prostitution, a watchful eye on the conditions under which women are employed or left unemployed, and the control of contributory factors, such as the liquor traffic, must be rigorously carried out.  Nation-wide prohibition will do much to control venereal disease.[18] It is interesting and significant that little reliance is being placed on the obsolete idea that prostitution can be made a legitimate and safe part of army life solely by personal prophylactic methods, or by any system of inspection of the women concerned.  It is a hopeful sign that this conception is at last meeting with the discredit which has long been due it.

[18] Through the effect on prostitution.  A well-known and very intelligent prostitute, with whom this question was recently discussed, rated the liquor traffic first among the influences tending to promote prostitution.

The question has occurred to those interested in compulsory military service as a measure of national defense as to whether the mobilization of troops for training will favor the spread of sexual disease.  Unfortunately, there are no satisfactory figures for the civil population showing how many persons per thousand per year acquire syphilis or gonorrhea, to be compared with the known figures for the onset of such infections in the army.  Arguing from general considerations, however, there seems to be no reason to suppose that the army will show a higher proportion of infections than civilians.  In fact, there is every ground for believing that the percentage will be lower, since the army is protected by a fairly efficient and enforceable system of prophylaxis which is taught to the men, and they live, moreover, under a general medical discipline which reduces the risk of infection from other than genital sources to the lowest possible terms.  In opposition to the conception that the sexual ideals of the army are low, it may be urged that they are no lower than those of corresponding grades in civil life, and that hard work and rigid discipline have a much better effect in stiffening moral backbone than the laxities of present-day social life.  In the last analysis, the making of the moral tone of the army is in our own hands, and by putting into it good blood and high ideals, we can do as much to raise from it a clean manhood as by submitting that same manhood to the temptations and inducements to sexual laxity that it meets on every street corner.