Parliament: Report From the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts; Together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix [Command 351], together with Index

Beschreibung

Published in London: House of Commons, July, 1881, comprising an indispensable reference tool for students and historians of English social history and the Commonwealth, women's studies and medical regulation. A perfectly serviceable set of two reference copies; nothing fancy, but complete and still relatively sturdy, especially given their size and heft and age. The larger volume is bound in the original blue printed wraps, hand-stitched, interior is lightly toned and worn along edges, with light foxing up front, moderately soiled and foxed at rear, rear panel considerably chipped, present but hanging on by a thread. Handle with some care. Index ("Index to the Report From the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts") mildly soiled and foxed, tanned along edges, else still sturdy and easily readable. Both volumes in folio format, measuring 13" x 8 1/2" tall and wide, respectively. Command 351 (rendered at title page bottom near spine, faintly) follows from Command 340, which began with a lengthy Introduction, a Summary of the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1864-1866-1869, a Report of the Royal Commission, 1871. Then follows a lengthy report on the First Branch of the Inquiry--Hygienic, then the Constitutional, Moral, and Social Aspects involved, then finally the alleged benefits of the Acts' enforcement in terms of reduction of prostitution. This Command 351 continues with the constitution of the committees and the dates and times and locales and compositions of the various committees that heard multitudinous testimony. 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. [1], ii-xiv + 492 pp., together with Index, prelims plus 493-583 pp. plus two blank.

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 353153

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Bibliografische Details

Titel

Parliament: Report From the Select Committee on the Contagious Diseases Acts; Together with the Proceedings of the Committee, Minutes of Evidence, and Appendix [Command 351], together with Index

Verlag

House of Commons, by Her Majesty's Stationery Office

Erscheinungsjahr

1881

Sprache

Englisch

Einband

Softcover

Auflage

First Edition.

Zustand

Good

Verkäuferkataloge

• England