mucous membrane, both in men and women, and cannot all be destroyed.
With regard to syphilis, mercurial treatment, although remarkable in
its immediate effect, requires prolonged administration. And it is by
such means that it is proposed to make prostitutes clean! There is
only one radical cure for venereal diseases; that is not to contract
them! However, this does not prevent us from recommending all those
who are affected with them to seek immediate treatment by a skilled
specialist.

It is sad to see ladies of high position defending such barbarous
institutions as proxenetism (the business of keeping brothels) and the
regulation of prostitution, imagining that they thereby protect their
daughters against seduction. Such aberration can only be explained by
suggestive influence on the part of men. Among men, and especially
among many physicians, the belief in the efficacy of regulation
depends on a mixture of blind routine, faith in authority and want of
judgment, combined perhaps with more or less unconscious eroticism. We
shall consider this point in detail later on.

One of the most tragic effects of venereal disease is the
contamination of an innocent wife, whose whole life, hitherto chaste
and pure, becomes brutally deprived of its fruits, and whose dreams of
the ideal and hopes of happiness become swamped in the mire with which
prostitution has contaminated her. Is it surprising that love in such
cases becomes replaced by bitterness and despair? Some modern authors,
such as Brieux (_Les Avaries_) and Andre Couvreur (_La Graine_), have
pictured in their dramas and novels the tragic effects of venereal
disease and heredity in the family, as well as their social
consequences. What is deplorable, is the enormous proportion of
persons who are infected with venereal diseases.

SEXUAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

With the exception of what is called sexual inversion and pathological
love of the insane, sexual psychopathology (_i.e._, sexual pathology
of mind) is chiefly limited to the domain of the sexual appetite, and
originates mainly in fetichism (see Chapter V), to which it is closely
allied. Let us first examine certain anomalies which partly concern
the lower nervous functions.

First of all a general question presents itself. Hereditary or
congenital sexual anomalies have been distinguished from those which
are said to result from vicious habits. Krafft-Ebing, in his
celebrated book which we have already quoted, m