COMPLIMENTS OF 
WM. M. McLAURY, M. D., 
244 W. 42d St., N, Y. 
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XX ' . inm nilnrii Jr**iT#fllrA ir’ 
<iYJ$MrT I_J T C Q 
mui i 
ww wy/yyxx ■ LIST OF OFFICERS 
AND 
TRUSTEES 
OF THE 
Society of Medical Jurisprudence 
and State Medicine. 
FOR THE YEAR 1886. 
FRANK H. HAMILTON, M. D., L. L. D , President. 
Hon. AMOS G. HULL, Vice-President. 
GEO. W. WELLS, M. D., Secretary. 
WALTER T. DANIELS, Esq., Assistant Secretary. 
A. M. JACOBUS, M. D., Treasurer. 
J. F. CHAUVEAU, M. D., Corresponding Secretary. 
OFFICERS. 
TRUSTEES. 
WM. M. McLAURY, M. D., D. M. SHAW, Esq., 
President Board of Trustees. Secretary Board of Trustees. 
H. J. BOLDT, M. D., 
E. C. HARWOOD, M. D., 
E. H. BENN, Esq., 
W. H. RUSSELL, Esq., 
C. H. KITCHELL, Esq., 
WM. STEPHENS, M. D., 
GEO. W. WELLS, M. I). THE SOCIAL EVIL. 
SYNOPSIS OF MR. KITCHELL’S PAPER. 
At a regular meeting of the Society ol Medical Jurisprudence 
and State Medicine, on May 13, 1886, at the Academy of Medi- 
cine, 12 West 31st Street, New York, Charles H. Kitchell, Esq., 
presented the following synopsis of a paper on the Social Evil : 
Attention was called to the following points : 1. The magni- 
tude of the evil ; its sadness ; the difficulties surrounding its so- 
lution and even its discussion ; the utter hopelessness felt by 
many as to checking, much less curing, the evil ; woman the 
most potent factor in the solution of the problem, must teach and 
be taught the dignity of her position. 2. The denunciations of 
the Church and the severity of State laws have been of but little 
avail. 3. Definition of prostitution. 4. The subject has been 
treated from three points of view, moral, social, and physical, 
mostly from the latter, looking to the protection of men from the 
results of their own vice rather than a cure of the evil. The 
burdens of the law have fallen mostly upon women, while men 
have been easily absolved. 5. The evil considered historically, by 
an examination of the conditions of society in which it has been 
the most prevalent ; the conditions of and status of woman under 
the law, social and political, seeking thus to ascertain its causes 
and the direction in which we must search for its cure ; the law in Assyria, Judea, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and condition of 
women in those States prior to the Christian era. 6. Influence of 
Christianity , its effects in the elevation and emancipation of wo- 
man. 7. The effect of chivalry upon the status of woman in 
society and under the law. 8. Effect of the feudal system. 9.. 
Review of legislation in Rome, Germany, France, and England, 
showing its spirit, purpose, and result—that legislation has en- 
tirely failed to cure or correct the evil, or even to limit disease 
incident to it. 10. Corruption of courts and their influence upon 
society in increasing the evil. 11. It has been most prevalent 
under despotisms, where great wealth has accumulated in the 
hands of the few, where women were but little recognized by the 
law and shut out from remunerative avenues of labor ; it has 
decreased with the growth of individual liberty and the emancipa- 
tion of woman. 12. Failure to check the evil is largely due to 
the fact that neither the individual nor the State has fully realized 
the moral turpitude of the offense ; not through human laws but 
through human hearts, exalted and enobled, are we to look for 
its cure. 13. Its cure is : The emancipation and elevation of 
woman ; opening to her wide avenues of useful and remunerative 
work ; proper education of men and women commencing in 
childhood ; teaching men to recognize the sanctity of marriage, 
and that this vice should be shunned, not from fear of consequences 
but on account of its moral turpitude ; making men, young and 
old, feel and recognize that they cannot escape social ostracism 
if they violate social laws ; and creating a public sentiment as to 
the relation between men and women. 
MR. BENN’S PAPER. 
E. H. Benn, Esq., opened the discussion for the legal side of 
the house. He called attention to the prevalence of the social 
evil, and to the vast amount of consequent disease entailed upon 
New York and Brooklyn—the estimate being, according to Dr. 
Sanger’s book on the subject, 74,000 sufferers in 1857, which in- 
creasing with the increase of population, would be about 200,000 
4 annually at present in those two cities. Mr. Bonn ues as 
follows : 
It would be useless to deny that the pririial cause of this evil is a 
natural human passion, a desire entirely proper in itself and neces- 
sary for the propagation and preservation of the human race. It 
is not the due and lawful indulgence of this passion or desire that 
we designate as an evil, but its perversion—the undue stimulation, 
Mlicit intercourse and the public sale of the indulgence. 
One great cause of prostitution is the fact that females have 
never had equal opportunities with males to earn a living. 
For no good or just reason they have been and are excluded 
from many useful occupations for which they are as well fitted 
as men ; and in the few occupations they are permitted to follow 
they are restricted in many ways, and are rarely given the same 
compensation as men for the same work. 
Another cause is the drunkenness and cruelty of parents, who 
think little and careless about the fate of their daughters. Still 
another cause is the difference between the treatment of men 
and women guilty of indulgence in this vice, and the want of 
charity and the unforgiveness of women, and the persecution by 
women of their own sex. We know that many young men not 
only indulge in such vices, but actually seduce innocent girls, 
and still so far maintain their respectability as to be able to go 
into good society and afterwards marry respectable ladies. Let 
a female stray but once from the path of virtue, or let there be 
even one breath of suspicion against her. whether well founded or 
not, and there is no forgiveness for her. In such cases woman 
is her greatest enemy. A young woman so treated, with a 
certainty of being forever excluded from good society, with 
no chance to engage in any useful occupation, with no hope 
of decent treatment-- is it any wonder that she so often becomes 
desperate and an enemy of her kind? 
Another great cause of prostitution is our unjust laws concerning 
marriage and divorce. These views I know are contrary to the 
prevailing opinions of the people in this part of the country, or the 
5 opinions generally expressed by people who, whatever they 
may suppose they think, have not, in my opinion, thought 
very deeply on the subject. It seems to be fashionable and 
a cheap way of becoming or being popular with the churches, 
to inveigh against easy divorce—in reality against divorce for 
any cause. 
I charitably believe that this and the want of due considera- 
tion are the causes ot the numerous expressions of objection to 
divorce. But it is true, nevertheless, or at least it so seems to 
me, that if divorces were allowed for other causes than adultery, 
and the divorced persons were allowed to marry again, it would 
be better for the morals of the parties concerned as well as for 
their innocent children. I do not believe that the life of two 
persons should be blighted and their future made miserable by 
an unfortunate or mistaken marriage. I do not believe that 
two persons who hate each other should be required to live to- 
gether in a state of hostility. I do not believe that a woman 
ought to be compelled to live with a habitual drunkard or any 
one who is dangerous or who daily makes himself offensive for 
any cause. I believe the offspring of such parents so living to- 
gether and hating each other will be, and in many cases, and 
much more likely in all cases, are vicious and depraved. I be- 
lieve that such mutual hatred, or the hated by one of the other, 
is the chief cause of adultery; and that this city is full of married 
prostitutes who become and are such for those reasons. 
If for incompatibility of temper or other causes which make 
the union intolerable and life a burden, the parties could be 
divorced, each being allowed to marry again, divorce would not 
be considered disgraceful and the children would not be com- 
pelled to bear a stigma. Even a modification of the present 
law, allowing those divorced to marry again, would prevent a 
great deal of vice and prostitution. As the law now is, a divorce 
can be granted only for adultery, yet there are many divorces 
granted tor adultery committed through the inability of the par- 
ties to get a divorce for any other cause. And as if to encourage 
6 a continuation of adultery, the divorced person is forbidden to 
marry again during the lifetime ot the other party. It would 
seem as if there could be no other object or reason, for the pro- 
hibition is limited to the lifetime of the former wife or husband. 
It is not, then, because the lawmakers think the divorced party 
is unfit to be a husband or a wife, for if so, he or she would be 
just as unfit after the death of the other party as before. Ming- 
ling with society, capable of loving and being loved, yet forbid- 
den to marry, he or she will usually live with some one of the 
opposite sex without a marriage ceremony; or if a woman and 
she cannot do this, she will have less hesitation in joining the 
ranks of the prostitutes. 
I have now spoken of some of the causes of prostitution. I 
will next consider its prevention and remedy. There is an idea 
prevalent, confined, I think, however, to people who have not 
very thoroughly considered the subject or examined the ques- 
tion, that the world is getting worse, that our ancestors were 
wiser and better than we are, and that vice and crime are increas- 
ing. I do not believe it. I believe in human progress. I be- 
lieve that mankind has always been and now is growing wiser 
and better, and that in proportion to the population, vice and 
crime is constantly decreasing. 
So far as the vice ot illicit sexual indulgence is concerned, 
the further back we go in the history of man the worse it seems. 
Moses, the wisest and apparently the purest man of his day, 
had his Ethiopean concubines; and his writings and those of 
other sacred writers, describing the customs -and habits of the 
people of those early times, are full ot descriptions of this vul- 
garity and vice openly practiced. And it has been so in other 
nations since, being carried to such an extent in some cases as 
to work the destruction of governments and nations. In those 
days the people were not so well educated or enlightened as are 
the people of this country now. They consequently know less 
of the evils, the causes, and remedies. They know less of the 
human system, and they were less refined. Just in proportion 
7 as mankind has improved and become intelligent and refined- 
that vice, like all other vices, has diminished, but it has not 
been cured or prevented, How, then, can it be cured, prevented, 
or diminished? 
It has been conceded that the law furnishes no remedy. This 
to a certain extent I believe. Laws do not prevent it, for the idea 
appears to be that the man is innocent though the woman is 
guilty. The absurdity and injustice of this is manifest. Experi- 
ence has proven that prostitution or adultery cannot be abolished 
by law. It is said the Roman Catholic religion, where girls 
are obliged to confess their sins, does restrain this vice, but statis- 
tics do not prove it, for out of 2000 prostitutes 972 had protestant 
training, 977 Catholic training, while only 51 had no religious 
training. And in the number of prostitutes given in the statistics 
mentioned, this was the proportion of Protestants, Catholics, and 
non-professors. Is there any better test than this? The idea 
underlies all Christian teaching that woman is inferior to man, 
that she caused the fall of man and was consequently accursed of 
God; and in all Christian countries she has been regaided as 
inferior to man and subject to him. This idea was the foundation 
of the Canon law, by which woman has been so long deprived 
of her rights; but in spite of, and not because of Christianity, and 
because of the progress of mankind in arts, sciences, education, 
and civilization, woman is being elevated and is fast acquiring 
her rights, and may hope soon to be legally, as she now is 
morally and intellectually , the equal of man. This progress is 
being made, not in the most Christian but in the most skeptical 
parts of the country; and where such progress is made, woman 
becomes and is more intelligent, virtuous, and refined. There she 
is truly elevated. 
It is, then, not penal statutes nor police regulations, nor yet 
Christianity, that restrains or will prevent ordiminish prostitution 
but it is the general improvement of the masses, the advancement 
ot the people, male and female, in art, science, education, 
and civilization, giving women her legal or social rights, enabling 
8 or allowing her to stand higher legally in the scale of bein'; 
giving her a chance to earn a living, giving her an education 
fitting her to transact the business of life, teaching her and the 
opposite sex also that they should do right because it is right and 
for no other reason, that virtue is always rewarded and sin 
always punished by the operation of nature’s laws, by the effects 
that follow causes, and that from the evil consequences of this 
vice there is no escape. 
By doing this, and by treating women guilty of this vice with 
charity, and giving them a chance to reform, prostitution may be 
restrained or greatly diminished. 
If time would permit I would be glad to speak of such exten- 
uating circumstances as seem like partial excuses tor the con- 
duct of fallen women, and to show, as far as I can by argument, 
that she does not merit the contempt and punishment she receives 
for being the victim ot her seducer, who is always forgiven, even 
if he is blamed at all; and that the virtuous, unforgiving prudes 
who are deaf to her appeals, and who shut against her the door 
ot mercy and hope, and forbid and prevent to the extent of their 
ability her reformation and return to the paths of virtue, are 
morally more guilty than she; but I have extended my remarks 
to the limit and must leave the rest unsaid. 
9 DR. WM. M. McLAURY’S PAPER. 
I shall preface my remarks by a short catechism, a part of 
which is pertinent to this subject, and which I shall denominate 
“A Few Questions and Answers, by a Philosopher of our Day.’’ 
1. —What is Love? Love is the highest, the deepest, the broad- 
est, the profoundest sentiment and passion of the human soul. 
2. —What is Hate? Hate is Love turned sour. 
3. —What is Lust? Lust is Love gone mad. 
4. —What is Platonic Love? It is Ideal Sympathy. 
5. —What is Truth? Pilate’s question in Holy Writ remains 
unanswered. I shall give, as reply, the words of a modern 
philosopher: Truth is whatever is, has been, or is to be. 
6. —What is Art? Delsarte says, Art is feeling passed 
through thought and fixed in expression. A less metaphysical 
and more practical definition is: Art is Nature utilized or 
beautified. 
7. —What is Man? Man is the only animal that abuses his 
female. 
8. —What is time? Time is the connecting link between two 
eternities. 
9. —What is Life? Life is the vital spark that combines matter 
and force. 
10. —What is death? Death is the mysterious act that separ- 
ates matter and force, and returns each to its original reservoir- 
11. —What is Sin? Sin is (1), want of conformity to or trans- 
gression of God’s natural higher law. (2), any transgression of 
the moral or physical laws of nature—the natural law in morals 
being the “Golden Rule.” 
12. —What is Religion? Matthew Arnold says, Morality 
touched with emotion. 
WHAT IS THE SOCIAL EVIL ? 
Broadly defined, the Social Evil is the expression of sexual 
love in an unnatural or unhealthy manner; or,, more in accord 
10 with the sentiment of to-day, The expression of sexual love 
without the sanction of statute law. Inasmuch as love is- 
higher than written law, law cannot control it. It cannot 
compel two to love each other; neither can it prevent them. 
The higher law that governs all fecundity or productiveness, both 
animal and vegetable, should be our guide. Rightly studied, it 
becomes an infallible guide to both the happiness and health of 
the individual. Morals or ethics of States and societies vary 
with each century and by geographical limits. Thoughts and 
actions are tolerated and even commended in our social circle- 
now that a century ago would have been deemed worthy of 
capital punishment, e.g., witchcraft, heretical tenets of 
spiritualism, etc. The inventions of to-day would be deemed by 
our forefathers the works of the devil. Many a good man has 
lost his life by devising improvements for the race before his con- 
temporaries were ready to receive them, and thus inventors and 
leaders of thought became martyrs. With few exceptions, the na- 
tions of the world pass laws sanctioning or upholding polygamy or 
concubinage. The English and German speaking people are the 
only ones who enact strict monogamic laws. And 1 leave it with 
every intelligent, thoughtful man to judge how frequently those 
laws are evaded or disregarded in countries that demand their 
strict observance, It is estimated that there are more polygamists 
in London than in Constantinople. This brings us face to face 
with the subject, how incomplete and unsatisfactory the present 
marriage laws are. Do they fully meet' the mental, moral, and 
physical wants of the human family ? Do they not directly con- 
tradict and set aside the higher law in some of its aspects ? 
The sexual appetite is as natural and imperious as that for food 
and drink—for the temperate, healthful enjoyment thereof is neces- 
sary for healthful development of mind and body. 
This higher universal law is God’s law and cannot be abrogated 
or changed by any civil or sacerdotal enactment. There is no 
one subject on which society so much needs instruction as this one 
of love and its concomitants. 1 think I will not be disputed when. 
11 I say that all love, of whatever name or kind, has its origin in 
the sexual instinct. We could not be socially agreeable, frater- 
nally affectionate, paternally pious, or deifically devout except for 
this physiological felicitous God-given instinct. Sexuality is an ob- 
jective fact. Affection, passion, romance, love in all its phases, 
are its subjective antitheses, its mental complements. In present 
society the ideal compensates in great measure for actual sexual 
union, and is so far platonic. The more sexual power an indi- 
vidual has, the more powerful he or she may become in every 
direction, and the more their personality may be felt in the com- 
munity ; but, like any other good thing, if the power or force is 
abused, it tends to the destruction of the individual who has not 
the wisdon and discretion to use it properly and not intemper- 
ately. 
Emerson says, “Thought or philosophy makes everything pure 
and fit for use.’" What would be base or even obscene to the ob- 
scene, becomes illustrious when spoken in a new connection of 
thought. We must accept the inevitable, must make allowances 
for sexual passion, and subordinate it to high human uses. We 
can only hope to conquer nature by submitting to her. Scientists 
tell us that all progress is from homogeneity to heterogeneity, 
from uniformity to complexity. In the social law, to make allow- 
ances tor all divergences is a part of the duty of social philoso- 
phers. 
It is to be regretted that the tendency of existing laws is to 
make people hypocritical. What God hath joined together let no 
man put asunder. I will venture the assertion that what God 
joins man cannot put asunder. What man does, man may undo. 
God’s works and laws are immutable,—the same yesterday, to- 
day, and forever. Men and women need each other—all men 
and all women. This is God’s law. 
I fancy I hear some one say, well, let all men and women 
marry. So far as our society is concerned all men may marry 
—all women cannot, for the simple reason that in New York 
City alone there are forty to fifty thousand more women than men. 
12 Taking our State and the New England States, there are 150,000 
more women than men. Then there are 150,000 men who won’t 
marry, and there is no law to compel them. That leaves 300,000 
women in this small geographical circle, without the possibility 
of getting married. Can we say that all these 300,000 women are 
implacably wicked if they have ardent love natures and some- 
times yield to them? Does not God’s Law give them emotions, 
passions, and rights equally with their married sisters? Some of 
the most affectionate, loving girls ever born into life have gone 
down to despair and suicide, through remorse and self-condem- 
nation at their inability to control their love for men perhaps 
wholly unworthy. Miss Phelps says no man can realize the ago- 
nies women suffer from I5 to 30, that is, from the nubile age t<> 
marriage. Maudsley, in “Body and Mind,” says, Although wom- 
en bear sexual excesses better than men do, yet they suffer more 
then men by the entire deprivation of sexual intercourse. Sexual 
starvation is a condition in which either men or women may- 
reach a state when they will sacrifice everything dear in life to 
them to appease thatappetite—money, property, friends, family,rep- 
utation and even the hope of eternal bliss. To prevent or appease this 
morbid craving of a natural appetite it is only necessary that the 
sexes should commingle without too much restraint by convers- 
ing, singing, dancing, or even kissing in a decent, orderly man- 
ner; but too much law and rigor in things that pertain to the love 
nature is worse than none at all, as we all know forbidden fruit 
eagerly sought. As a dignified matron once expressed it, If it 
was a sin to take a drink of water, what a luxury that would be. 
Byron says, “Love is of man’s life a thing apart; ’tis woman’s 
whole existence.” I think statistics show that there are more 
women in insane asylums to-day from some perversion of the love 
nature, or sexual aberration, than all other causes put together. 
Some of the eminent alienests present to-night may correct this 
statement if I am wrong. Marriages does not invariably correct 
abuses of the love nature. I know intelligent men and women 
who have married and tortured each other all through life, not 
13 that they were implacably wicked, or even indifferent to each 
other’s welfare, but simply that they did not know how to love 
each other harmoniously. There is nothing in the world that 
people are suffering so much for as for a want of knowledge on 
this one subject. As an old doctor, now deceased, once expressed 
it to mein conversation on this subject: People suffering, suffer- 
ing and dying through ignorance, and no one to teach them. 
There is no stimulus accessible to our race so potent for good> 
when naturally and healthfully utilized, or for evil when perverted 
and abused. The physiology of the whole passion of love has 
never yet been written. That it generates force and increases 
mental and physical power is undoubted. 1 Not only is it capable 
of germinating a new individual, but, wisely developed and exer- 
cised within strict limits, it may to an almost unlimited extent in- 
crease the mental and physical powers of the individual.* 
In the present state of society and social ethics, woman is by 
far a greater sufferer from the evils afflicting society than man- 
And woman, being more patient, more conscientious, more re- 
ligious, as well as more emotional and intuitional, can exert a 
greater moral force than her physically stronger brother, man. 
Now, inasmuch as man has been enacting and enforcing laws to 
suppress evils of this character, and all his efforts have proved 
futile or practically so, I ask, Would it not at this stage ot human 
progress be wise to have the advice and co-operation of woman 
in the questions affecting the morals of the community—temper- 
ance, education, heredity and the science of life ? Women are 
largely on the right side on this important question of the social 
evil, as on all questions involving the morals of society. We 
might give woman a chance by extending her sphere of action, 
that her influence may be felt politically, that she might bring 
order out ot confusion. Instead of being soiled by the corrupt 
slough in which the politicians of to-day are wallowing, her pres- 
ence and influence would surely purify the filthy pool. Then, 
instead of holding caucuses in liquor saloons and low places of 
*Kee The Senses—Five, or Seven? by Wm. M. McLaury, M. D., 1884. 
14 resort they would be held in churches and hotel parlors or pri- 
vate residences, where no lady need be afraid or ashamed to re- 
sort, and talk easily and freely on such subjects as pertain to the 
public welfare, which is quite as important to her as it is to the 
masculine animal. Instead ot lowering women by participating 
in the'political arena it would undoubtedly elevate man. 
We seem to be on the verge of a moral and social revolution, 
and as present and past social laws are being changed and 
evaded, alarm and panic is created in the minds of conservative 
observers; but to those who see the laws of the past as having 
served their purpose and becoming useless and obsolete, those 
whom we term the vanguard of the race for progress are looking 
hopefully into the future. Tney see and know that there is suf- 
ficient intellectual and moral force in the community to prevent 
anarchy, and quite sufficient constructive energy to build up, in 
place ot the ruins and decay of present and past institutions, oth- 
ers that will far more completely comply with the health re- 
quirements of the people of this and coming generations. 
From my own experience and observation I believe that one 
man and one woman, physically and mentally adapted to each 
other, living harmoniously and intelligently, rearing children in 
love, happiness and usefulness, represent to us the very highest 
type of human happiness. The average family is not this, and 
our present social ethics do not produce this; instead we seem to 
be drifting farther from it. It is not the poor and ignorant alone 
that suffer through domestic infelicity, but equally the learned and 
intelligent classes. Those high in Church and State figure in 
courts of law as transgressors against the present standard of 
ethics in the family. 
Mr. Kitchell touches the keynote ot solving this problem where 
he says women is the most potent factor, and she must teach 
and be taught. Church and State laws have been of but 
little avail, because they have not recognized the God law; 
the natural law. You may as well legislate against the law of 
gravitation as against the law of sex. But reasonable instruction 
15 of honest, earnest men and women will do more to reform the 
abuses of society than written law of whatever name or kind. 
Cleanliness of mind and body will prevent disease and physical 
weakness by sexual love. Mr. Kitrfiell truly says: Not through 
written laws, but through noble thoughts and aspirations of men 
and women are we to look for its cure—creating a correct public 
sentiment, and visiting punishment on offenders of public decency 
with equal severity without regard to their sex. 
I would like to have something to say in reference to the sad 
ravages to the health of victims of venereal disease, but my time 
will not permit, and will merely reter to the admirable paper by 
Dr. Gihon, delivered in this room on April 5th, 1882. 
(The subject was further discussed by Drs. Spitzka, Brill and 
Harwood, W. H. H. Russell, Esq., and others; the discussion 
being closed at a late hour by Charles H. Kitchell, Esq.)