CONTENTS-Cont'd. International Control of Venereal Diseases in the Postwar Period: With Special Reference to England and Wales International Control of Venereal Diseases in the Postwar Period: With Special Reference to Canada Lieutenant Colonel Donald H. Williams International Control of Venereal Diseases in the Postwar Period: With Special Reference to Mexico Dr. Enrique Villela, delivered by Dr. Jaime Velarde Thome. International Control of Venereal Diseases in the Postwar FOREWORD The National Conference on Postwar Venereal Disease Control may prove to have particular significance for medical and public health historians. The new drugs and new methods of using older drugs, and the . new emphasis on case finding may eventually be credited with the eradication of venereal disease as a major health problem in the United States. Participation in the conference by physicians representing several of the Allied Nations may prove the first step in the development of practical methods for international venereal disease control. Finally, future students may discover that the St. Louis conference marked the beginning of a broadened concept of the part to be played by ethical, educational, welfare, and law enforcement agencies in the prevention of infection. Veteran leaders in the control movement observed another characteristic. They felt that this meeting of nearly a thousand physicians, laboratory scientists, nurses, administrative experts, educators, and social hygienists was marked by an undefinable sense of brotherhood in what might almost be termed a crusade. Certainly there was tangible sense of power, of great forces being set in motion toward a goal which now seemed far less remote than in previous meetings. There was less indecision, more unity, more determination, and more hope. Perhaps we who participated sensed that here was the briefing before the last, victorious drive against two ancient and stubborn enemies. THURSDAY MORNING SESSION November 9, 1944 The National Conference on Postwar Venereal Disease Control, under the auspices of the United States Public Health Service, Federal Security Agency, convened at the St. Louis Medical Society Building, at 10 o'clock, November 9, 1944. Dr. Thomas Parran, Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service, presided. The Chairman: This Third National Conference on Venereal Disease Control will come to order. We have a message of greetings and regrets from the Governor of Missouri who finds it impossible to be here. The State Health Officer likewise is unable to be present. He is represented by a member of the State Board of Health, Dr. C. H. Neilson, who is also Assistant Dean of St. Louis University. Dr. C. H. Neilson: Both Dr. James Stewart, Missouri State Health Commissioner, and Dr. Cleveland Shutt, President of the Missouri State Board of Health regret that they are unable to be present at this time and have delegated me, as Vice President of the State Board of Health, to welcome you on their behalf and for the Missouri State Board of Health. We all hope that you will have a good time and will be instructed and interested, as your work is so very timely. The Chairman: We next are to have a word of greeting from Dr. J. F. Bredeck, the City Health Officer of St. Louis. Dr. J. F. Bredeck: As the Health Commissioner of the city of St. Louis, we are very happy to welcome this meeting, because the problem that you have met here to discuss is one that is of very serious interest to us here in St. Louis. All of you know that when meetings of this type are held in any locality we always get an extra stimulus out of it in discussing our problems, and exchanging some of our difficulties. So in the name of the city of St. Louis I welcome you. I hope the meeting will prove successful, that you will renew many of your old acquaintances, and that you will leave with an increased interest in the vital subjects which will be discussed at this meeting. The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Bredeck. We are very deeply indebted to the St. Louis Medical Society for the opportunity of using this beautiful building and auditorium. We, therefore, are especially glad to have a word of welcome from Dr. Rogers Deakin, First Vice President of the St. Louis County Medical Association. Dr. Rogers Deakin: I imagine that all vice presidents feel rather superfluous most of the time, but this is one occasion when I am glad that I am a Vice President of the St. Louis Medical Society, because it gives me the opportunity and the privilege of welcoming the members of this conference to St. Louis and to this building which is our home. I, personally, get a great deal of pleasure out of meeting so many old friends, and I am sure that all the members of the St. Louis Medical Society join with me in wishing you both a profitable and a pleasant meeting. The Chairman: We expected to have the Honorable Watson Miller, Assistant Administrator of the Federal Security Agency, at this meeting but he seems to have been delayed. The Honorable Paul V. McNutt, Administrator of the Federal Security Agency, has asked me to convey the following message to this National Venereal Disease Conference. MESSAGE TO THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON POSTWAR PAUL V. MCNUTT, Administrator, I deeply regret that unavoidable commitments prevent my meeting with you in this conference. My regret is tempered only by 1 my high confidence in those who have answered the call from all over the country and from other nations. The sacrifice you have no doubt made in order to come here would be warranted only to consider a problem of inescapable national urgency. Venereal disease control is such a problem-a challenge where we can afford no relaxing of vigilance, where we must take prompt advantage of all the new weapons science has or can put into our hands. I need not urge upon this meeting the serious, indeed, shameful, hazard which the venereal diseases still constitute to the health of the American people, in wartime and all the time. But I can reenforce this conviction with the first-hand knowledge which comes to me both from the Public Health Service and from other units of the Federal Security Agency, and from the War Manpower Commission. Our experience in marshalling the Nation's manpower for war has furnished additional proof that venereal disease is a specific handicap to all-out mobilization. This drain is measured not only in the terms of thousands of men unfit for military services, or unable to stand up under the heavy demands of war jobs. It is measured also by time lost from active duty within the ranks of our armed forces. It is measured again in the added burdens placed upon the Nation's desperately short medical, nursing and hospital resources. But even this is not all. To the physical havoc wrought by these diseases and by the conditions in which they breed must be added the social wreckage of twisted moral and ethical values, of warped and irreparably damaged lives. For those of you who are medical men, health is the first responsibility. But I know you share our concern for other sectors in this complex and far-flung battle line. The Federal Security Agency has responsibilities not only for health but also for prevention and rehabilitation through constructive law enforcement, social welfare services, cooperation of business and community groups, and support of an informed and alert public. These varied approaches give us an opportunity to see the problem in broad perspective and to aid in building a united attack upon it. This all-out attack is the more urgent because of our neglect following the first World War. During those years, Federal, State, and local appropriations for venereal disease control were practically nonexistent. There were hardly more than 500 public clinics, and most of them were in the big cities of the East. For that neglect we have paid in wasted manpower and in wrecked lives. But the price might have been even higher if it were not for the work of the last 8 years. With funds made available under the Social Security Act in 1936 and augmented under the LaFollette-Bulwinkle Act in 1938, the Nation-wide venereal disease control program has made great strides toward repairing the earlier damage. This and other magnificent health advances since the turn of the century would have been impossible without the tireless vigilance of doctors and the cooperation of city, county, State, and Federal governments in mobilizing public health resources. Without the science and skill of modern medicine, without the teamwork of your profession, typhoid, cholera, yellow fever, diphtheria, and smallpox could not have been controlled; with your science, skill, and teamwork they have been brought-and kept-to a manage |