n has to deal with. Any
one who knows anything of the disease naturally has a healthy desire to
avoid it, and if he is a victim of it, a considerable belief in its
seriousness. But certain types of persons, who are usually predisposed
to it by a nervous makeup, or who have a tendency to brood over things,
or who perhaps have heard some needlessly dreadful presentation of the
facts, become the victims of an actual mental disorder, a temporary
unbalancing of their point of view. To the victims of syphilophobia, as
this condition is called, syphilis fills the whole horizon. If they have
not been too seriously disturbed by the idea, a simple statement of the
facts does wonders toward relieving their minds. A few of them cling
with the greatest tenacity to the most absurd notions. For those victims
of the disease who are the prey of morbid anxiety the assurance that it
is one of the most curable of all the serious diseases, and that if they
are persistent and determined to get well, they can scarcely help doing
so, usually sets their minds at rest. The idea that there is a cloud of
disgrace over the whole subject, and the old-fashioned belief that
syphilis is incurable and hopeless, inflict needless torture and may do
serious damage to the highly organized sensitive spirits which it is to
society's best interest to conserve. The overconscientious syphilitic
hardly realizes that the real horrors of the disease are usually the
rewards of indifference rather than overanxiety. Persons who subject
themselves to the ordinary risks of infection which have been described
in the preceding chapters do well to be on their guard and to maintain
even a somewhat exaggerated caution. Those who do not expose themselves
need not look upon the disease with morbid anxiety or alarm. In the
relations of life in which syphilis is likely to be a factor it should,
of course, be ferreted out. But there is no occasion for panic. We need
a sane consciousness of the disease, a knowledge of its ways and of the
means of prevention and cure for the world at large. We do not need
hysteria, whether personal or general, and there is nothing in the facts
of the situation to warrant the development of such a mental attitude
either on the part of the syphilitic or of those by whom he is
surrounded. Insofar as morbid fear in otherwise normal persons is the
product of ignorance it can be dispelled by convincing them of this
fact.

Chapter XV

Moral and Pe