Parliament: Report from the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts; [Command 323] together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix

Beschreibung

Sturdy, still tightly bound softcover copy, minor to moderate wear of covers and text-block, but with neither underlining nor highlighting. Perfectly readable, usable copy. An indispensable guide for the student or historian of English history and especially medical legislation and social history as regards the prostitution of women and putative vice and immorality. Bound in tall, folio format measuring 13" x 8 3/8" tall and wide, respectively, in stiff blue card stock wraps, with printed paper label to front cover, remaining unabraded. Overall Very Good condition, published in London: House of Lords, ordered to be printed in 30 July, 1879. Light, uniform toning to pages, moreso along edges, else clean and unmarked. The Contagious Diseases Acts ("Contagious" being a transparent euphemism for "Venereal") were passed by the British Parliament in 1864, 1867, and 1869, initially and ostensibly so as to address concern regarding the high levels of venereal disease in the armed forces, specifically the British Army and Navy, throughout the 1860s. In 1862 a committee was established to inquire into venereal disease in the British military, and on its recommendation the first Contagious Diseases Act was passed in 1864. The Act was specifically aimed at keeping down the levels of venereal disease in the armed forces by allowing plain-clothed police to "identify" (actually, to inscribe) "prostitutes" (or women dubbed as such) who were putatively infected with gonorrhoea or syphilis. The Act was enforced initially within eleven specified garrison and port towns. Included n initially were Portsmouth, Devonport, Sheerness, Woolwich, Windsor, Shorncliff, Winchester, Dover, Canterbury, Maidstone, Cork, Curragh, Chatham, and Aldershot. The women and girls, if they failed to register themselves to the police, were required to undergo mandatory medical examination and treatment until thought uninfected if not cured. They could opt out by confinement in a Lock Hospital or be put to forced labor for up to three months, then extended to six and eventually 12 months. Like Catholic priests in the priesthood, British soldiers were discouraged from both homosexual contact and heterosexual marriage, and so various labor forms of prostitution were considered a necessary evil. No males were examined or surveilled upon or registered or incarcerated, one of many points of contention in multiple campaigns led to repeal the Acts. The Acts were extended eventually to the north of England, then to the civilian population, then throughout the Commonwealth, India to Malta, Canada to Australia. Most essentially, any woman who lived in, worked in, or passed through poor, surveilled upon areas were subject to arrest and compulsory medical examination on the suspicion of being a prostitute. Many women detained were not prostituted but were compelled anyway to undergo medical examination by police doctors and others. Included here are great, heaping cart-loads of empirical data regarding dates and places and numbers of women so surveilled upon, treated in plentiful Appendixes. Then a separate Appendix to the entire report. [iii], iv-viii + 213 pp. (plus stamp from Public Record Office) the final 33 pp. of which consist of a one-page "Analysis" of and then the alphabetically arranged Index of all of the topics covered in multiple reports, thus remarks about, for example, the Age of prostitutes, one of the garrison towns where the Acts were enforced, Aldershot, the Amount of Venereal Disease, the location of Brothels, locales such as Chatham, Cork, and Dover, Liverpool, also Lock Hospitals, and the like, Methodists, Soldiers--you name it.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 353152

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Bibliografische Details

Titel

Parliament: Report from the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts; [Command 323] together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix

Verlag

Her Majesty's Stationery Office, for the House of Commons

Erscheinungsjahr

1879

Sprache

Englisch

Einband

Softcover

Auflage

First Edition.

Zustand

Very Good

Verkäuferkataloge

• England