of syphilis any real power to control the expression of their desires.  Sexual morality is a complex affair, in which the habit of self-control in many other activities of life plays an important part.  The man or woman who best deserves to be called clean and honorable and sexually blameless has not become so through a negative morality and an enlightened selfishness.  The man who does not have bred into him from childhood the instinct to say the “everlasting no” to his passions will never learn to say it from the fear of syphilis.  Sexual self-control is a habit, not a reasoned-out affair, and its foundation must rest on the rock bottom of character and not in the muck of venereal disease.

+The Broader Outlook.+—­If, then, it avails nothing in the uplifting of our morals to treat syphilis as a disgrace, if the disease is ineffective as a deterrent, and barbarously undiscriminating, inhuman, and unjust as a punishment, let us in all fairness lay aside the attitude of mind which has so hindered and defeated our efforts to deal with it as an arch enemy to human health, happiness, and effectiveness.  In the face of all our harsh traditions it takes a good deal of breadth of view to look on the disease impersonally, rather than in the light of one or two contemptible examples of it whom we may happen to know.  But, after all, to think in large terms and with a sympathy that can separate the sinner from his sin and the sick man from the folly that got the best of him, is no mean achievement, well worthy of the Samaritan in contrast with the Levite.  To the remaking of the traditional attitude of harsh, unkindly judgment upon those unfortunate enough to have a terrible disease, we must look for our soundest hope of progress.

+The Mental States of Syphilitics.+—­The mental outlook of the person with syphilis is in its turn as important a factor in our campaign against the disease as is that of the person without it.  In order to give some idea of the ways in which this can influence the situation it may be well to sketch what might be called the four types of mind with which one has to deal—­the conscientious, the average, the irresponsible, and the morbid.  Under the morbid type are included those persons who, without having syphilis, are in morbid fear of the disease, or have the fixed belief that they are infected with it, even when they are not.

+The Conscientious Type.+—­Conscientious patients, speaking from the physician’s standpoint, are the product of intelligence and character combined.  Though distinctly in the minority, and usually met in the better grades of private practice, one is often surprised how many there are, considering the treacherous and deceptive features of the disease, which leave so much excuse for laxity and misunderstanding on the part of the laymen.  A conscientious patient is one who is not content with any ideal short of that of radical cure.  It takes unselfishness and self-control to go without those things which make the patient in