ge, should be put into the
hands of every syphilitic patient as a matter of routine, and it
might be as well to have a corresponding card for gonorrhoeal
patients. This plan has already been introduced at some
hospitals, and it is so simple and unobjectionable a precaution
that it will, no doubt, be generally adopted. In some countries
this measure is carried out on a wider scale. Thus in Austria, as
the result of a movement in which several university professors
have taken an active part, leaflets and circulars, explaining
briefly the chief symptoms of venereal diseases and warning
against quacks and secret remedies, are circulated among young
laborers and factory hands, matriculating students, and scholars
who are leaving trade schools.

In France, where great social questions are sometimes faced with
a more chivalrous daring than elsewhere, the dangers of syphilis,
and the social position of the prostitute, have alike been dealt
with by distinguished novelists and dramatists. Huysmans
inaugurated this movement with his first novel, _Marthe_, which
was immediately suppressed by the police. Shortly afterwards
Edmond de Goncourt published _La Fille Elisa_, the first notable
novel of the kind by a distinguished author. It was written with
much reticence, and was not indeed a work of high artistic
value, but it boldly faced a great social problem and clearly set
forth the evils of the common attitude towards prostitution. It
was dramatized and played by Antoine at the Theatre Libre, but
when, in 1891, Antoine wished to produce it at the
Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre, the censor interfered and prohibited
the play on account of its "contexture generale." The Minister of
Education defended this decision on the ground that there was
much in the play that might arouse repugnance and disgust.
"Repugnance here is more moral than attraction," exclaimed M.
Paul Deroulede, and the newspapers criticized a censure which
permitted on the stage all the trivial indecencies which favor
prostitution, but cannot tolerate any attack on prostitution. In
more recent years the brothers Margueritte, both in novels and in
journalism, have largely devoted their distinguished abilities
and high literary skill to the courageous and enlightened
advocacy of many social reforms. Victor Margueritte, in his