Prostitution- Medical Journal Articles c.1880's

[Archaic]

1880 Article Advocates "Spaying" Diseased Prostitutes

This article is from the Chicago Medical Review, 1880.

It's from a much longer article discussing the case of the Jukes family, who were pointed to by theorists as evidence that crime was hereditary, etc.
I just cropped the latter portion of the article, because it deals with Prostitution.

This article states "Prostitution in woman is the counterpart of Crime in man."

Its author worries about the difficulty of "controlling the sexual instincts of idiots" (still a problem, I'd say )

Women are again identified as the source and carrier of deadly diseases (in this case, Syphilis), and the question of men who spread the disease to women or men who frequent prostitutes is utterly ignored. Towards the end the author advocates "spaying" syphilitic prostitutes!

Best regards,
Archaic

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

Jason is quite right, not every woman who fell on hard times turned to prostitution. It's a very complex issue. Every situation for every woman was unique to them, and there aren't really any answers as to why some did and some didn't.

Just to go on from Archaic's post about the causes of prostitution though, in the case of at least some of Jack's victims, they turned to drink long before they started prostituting themselves. Their lives were mainly a very sad catalogue of hardships that might have caused anyone to turn to drink. Once their marriages broke down, they just went completely off the rails.

In Annie's case it was almost certainly the strain caused by the illness of her children and the death of one of her children with meningitis that caused her initial bouts of drinking. She and John found it hard to cope with and they both took to drink to try and deal with it. By the time she became a prostitute drink had already become a crutch, and she did drink to excess, but she certainly wasn't a rolling about drunk alcoholic. She sustained herself mainly by selling silk flowers, crochet work and bric-a brac. She prostituted herself as a top-up when she couldn't make enough selling goods. She certainly did like a drink and I'm sure got drunk, but she wasn't a fall down in the gutter alcoholic.

Polly was drinking when she was married to Edward, again before she was prostituting herself. It's hard to say why she started drinking, but if the story of Edward running off with the nurse is true, I suspect that she downed a few bevies to drown her sorrows! She did prostitute herself partially for day to day necessities, but there is no question that the drink was probably more important to her than food or lodgings, and if she had to choose between a drink and a roof over her head, she would have chosen the drink. She did try to straighten herself out, but she just couldn't manage it in the end.

Kate certainly liked a drink, and she was pissed on the night she was murdered, but she wasn't a confirmed alcoholic, she just liked a good drink now and again. Kelly said she did sometimes drink to excess, but she wasn't in the habit. She and John lived from his income and Kate did some charring to earn money. It's not even absolutely certain that she was a part-time prostitute, although the evidence does suggest that she was prostituting herself on the night she was murdered.

Really though, there seems to be a pattern - the breakdown of a marriage or widowhood, with drink already playing a large part in their lives, followed by an attempt to earn a living any way they could, and gradually falling further and further into misery until all that they had left was drink, to drown their sorrows.

Love

Jane

xxxx

[Archaic]

Prostitutes & Male Prostitutes In 1890 'Medical Record' Article

I've been looking for an LVP article on Prostitution that at least acknowledges the fact that the male clients of prostitutes also play a part in the spread of venereal diseases, as well as in the fact that Prostitution exists in the first place and perpetually flourishes.

I came across another 1890 article describing the Tarnowski Study of Russian prostitutes. When I found this article my eyes happened to fall on its last sentence, "It takes two to construct the prostitute" and I thought I had finally found an article acknowledging that the male clients of prostitutes were the other half of the equation- boy was I wrong!

Silly me. Why didn't I know that it was actually "the male prostitutes who habitually frequent the houses of prostitution" that "give the main support to this unfortunate class?"

Gee, I thought it was their hordes of paying customers.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Archaic]

"Instinctive Criminality" Symptomatic of a "Decayed Race" 1891

Here's an article on "Instinctive Criminality" published in 1891 by the 'British Association For The Advancement of Science".

The article states that it is "now being generally admitted" that "criminality is hereditary", but note the next statement, in which all kinds of physical and mental disabilities such as Epilepsy and Deafness are said to be "degenerate conditions", "interchangeable with Insanity, Prostitution, and Drunkenness".

So this doctor has neatly lumped physical ailments and disabilities with Insanity and "Instinctive Criminality". One can see how such sweeping categorization made it easier for "normal" people to believe that people with disabilities and women trapped in prostitution "brought it on themselves" by virtue of their birth. (Or, more accurately, by the lack of virtue in their birth!) That of course makes it easier to blame the victim and to feel that they don't deserve compassion or help. By branding huge numbers of human beings "hereditary and instinctive criminals" the scientists and physicians are conveniently setting them apart from the rest of humanity.

Epilepsy is a physical disease, not a mental disease. As we all know, Deafness is a physical disability, not a mental disability. In the 19th C., Epileptics and Deaf-Mutes were often locked away in Lunatic Asylums. Few people realize it, but his practice continued well into the 20th C.

It absolutely amazes me that prostitutes are "scientifically" categorized and condemned as inferior human beings, but the male clients who sought their services and made it possible for prostitution to flourish are never even mentioned.

Best regards,
Archaic