ecede 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 efficie