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67
ally applied preventive policy. This is particularly so in respect of
the venereal diseases.
In Sweden, an acknowledged advanced country medically, there
was recently instituted under control conditions, an investigation
into venereal disease in its capital Stockholm.
Among those patients with venereal disease some 15/20% had
been previously infected and 70% of boys aged 16 to 17 years along
with 43% of girls of a similar age had had seven or more sexual
partners by the age of 17. Moreover, 85% of the boys and 72% of
the girls had had their first sexual experience at the age of 15 years
or under. At a recent meeting in London of the Medical Society
for the Study of Venereal Diseases, Dr. Gustaven said he regarded
these persons as the "rule breakers" and this contention was
supported by the fact that significantly more of those who had had
many partners had been involved in burglary, petty thefts, fights
or had had brushes with the police.
Another significant fact revealed by this social pathology exercise
was that twice as many of those with venereal disease had
taken drugs as in the control group.
New cases of primary and secondary syphilis during 1967 in
England and Wales at 1,321 (1,075 males and 246 females) showed
a slight reduction from those of the previous year, viz. 1,374
(1,132 males and 242 females), the improvement being mainly in
males. Current figures for the Inner London Boroughs were 679
males and 105 females compared with the 1966 totals of 749 and
148 respectively.
Such reductions, though small, are an indication that even in
today's permissive society where many consider extramarital
sexual activity normal, control is possible but it requires constant
vigilance.
Conversely, gonorrhoea cases reported during the year in
England and Wales rose by 11.6% to 41,829, the highest total since
1946. Cases of vulvo-vaginitis in children (77) which showed an
increase of 7 over the previous year and gonococcal ophthalmia
which rose by 6 to a total of 41 are admittedly small in numbers but
they are disturbing.
Since 1951, non-gonococcal urethritis in males has increased each
year and the 1967 figure of 32,318 cases is an advance of 6% over
the 1966 total. This persistent increase reveals an intractable problem
which, on occasions, produces serious complications to joints
and eyes. Modern methods of contraception, being non-mechanical,
provide no barrier to the spread of this infection the cause of which
has, so far, eluded us.