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Mr Silverman - History > The Contagious Diseases Act > Flashcards

The Contagious Diseases Act Flashcards

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1
Q

Suggest 2 reasons why working-class women resorted to prostitution

A
  • for many it was a simple means of making money when there was not enough work available, particularly during financial harship
  • Other than the predominant employer of domestic service, jobs were highly unpredictable, so prostitution could allow for them to live independently
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2
Q

What was the moral case against prositution

A
  • Women were supposed to be ‘moral guardians’
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3
Q

Whats the evidence prostitution posed a threat to public health

A
  • Venereal diseases such as gonorrhoea & syphilis caused major problems:
  • 7% of the sick poor had venereal diseases
  • 20% of child admissions at the Royal Free Hospital had syphilis
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4
Q

How did army policies encourage the use of prosititution within the army

A
  • The British Army did not allow non-commissioned soldiers to be married - as married men may be more reluctant to risk their lives in combat
  • It was believed to be key to preventing (illegal) homosexuality
  • Brothels were therefore permitted near army bases & considered a necessary evil
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5
Q

Reasons why the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced

Military reasons - The Crimean War

A
  • Reporting of The Crimean War highlighted the high degree of venereal disease among the troops.
  • Annual reports on the health of the army were then conducted.
  • Despite an extended period of peace after the Crimean war people were again aware of the need for a fully fit army
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6
Q

Reasons why the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced

Moral & Religious reasons - mens thoughts

A

Many men thought illicit commercial sex was inescapable; it just needed to be contained and regulated.

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7
Q

Reasons why the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced

Economic reasons - benefits

A
  • Welfare benefits increased to ease the difficulties of those workers who lost their job and couldn’t find other employment.
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8
Q

Reasons why the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced

Military reasons - army efficiency

A
  • By 1864, venereal diseases accounted for one in three sick cases in the army
  • The War Office and Admiralty were concerned that the efficiency of the army and navy were being damaged
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9
Q

Reasons why the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced

Moral & Religious reasons - QofL

A
  • Due to the success of the Factory Acts and 1848 Public Health Act
  • in improving quality of life for groups of people,
  • many argued that legislation could do the same with venereal disease
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10
Q

Reasons why the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced

Military reasons - navy

A
  • Levels of venereal disease were often even higher among the navy.
  • Ships were often incapable of sailing for weeks because of the high rate of infection amongst sailors.
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11
Q

Reasons why the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced

Moral & Religious reasons - marriage

A

Evangelical Christians condemned the use of prostitutes claiming it desecrated the holy union of marriage.

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12
Q

Reasons why the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced

Miltary reasons - solider examinations

A
  • In 1859 compulsory medical examinations of soldiers were abandoned
  • because of hostility of the men to such intimate investigations - the issue had to be addressed in another way.
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13
Q

Reasons why the Contagious Diseases Acts were introduced

Military reasons - male motivation

A
  • Government and military authorities were driven to provide safe sex for men (no concern for women’s welfare)
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14
Q

What was the purpose of the 1862 Committee of Inquiry

A

To investigate how venereal disease within the army could be prevented

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15
Q

Name 3 early key figures apart of the 1862 Committee of Inquiry

A
  • Florence Nightingale
  • Sir John Liddell
  • John William Acton
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16
Q

Who was Florence Nightingale

A
  • Served in the Crimean war as a nurse
  • 1860 - set up a nursing school
  • became interested in social reform & advocated for appropriate forms of female employment
  • she thought it was the army’s repsonsibility for stopping men visiting prostitutes
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17
Q

Who was Sir John Liddell

A
  • In charge of the medical department of the Royal Navy from 1855 to 1864
  • Argued the state should regulate prostitutes by frequent medical checks instead of those in the armed services being responsible
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18
Q

Who was John William Action

A
  • Surgeon with a high reputation
  • Published a book on social issues cause by prostitution which had a significant impact on govt thinking
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19
Q

What was John William Acton’s argument on prostitution

A
  • prostitution was necessary to meet the needs of men,
  • but the medical profession held the key to stopping the spread of disease
  • & to offering a way out of prostitution for women
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20
Q

What recommendations were made by the committee

A
  • The army should issue penalties to soldiers for concealing (but not conracting) venereal diseases
  • More lock hospitals should be created & prostitutes should be encouraged to visit them voluntarily
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21
Q

What dd the government do with the committee’s recommendations

A
  • ignored tem & took no action (with Gladstone being the most vocal opponent)
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22
Q

What was a lock hospital

A
  • hospitals that existed on most British army & naval bases, which included a ward for the treatment of venereal diseases
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23
Q

What was introduced for the first time by the Royal Navy in 1858?

A

a lock hospital in portsmouth (a hospital with a ward specialist in VD where prostitutes could visit voluntarily for treatment)

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24
Q

What were the contents of the 1864 Contagious Diseases Act

A
  • This applied to 11 specific named naval ports and garrison towns
  • It allowed the police to arrest prostitutes and order them to undergo an internal examination
  • If they were infected with venereal disease, they were detained in a lock hospital until they were cured
  • If a woman refused, she could be thrown into prison after a trial in which she had to prove she was virtuous
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25
Q

What was contained in the 1866 Contagious Diseases Act

A
  • This extended the 1864 act in that prostitutes in naval ports and garrison towns,
  • were to be subject to compulsory internal examinations every three months
  • Regular examinations of suspected prostitutes within ten miles of the named ports and garrison towns were introduced
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26
Q

What was contained in the 1869 Contagious Diseases Act

A
  • extended the 1866 act to cover all 18 garrison areas
  • allowed suspected prostitutes to be locked up for five days before they were examined
  • Prostitutes could be detained in a lock hospital for up to a year and subjected to fortnightly inspections
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27
Q

Summarise the key regions that the Contagious Diseases Acts affected

A

Regions with Naval bases, predominantly in the South England, not the Industrial North

28
Q

What does the Contagious diseases Acts tell us about the Government’s priorities with regard to prostitution & venereal diseases

A
  • they felt they could mitigate the diseases through punishment & containment
29
Q

On what grounds could you criticse the Contagious Diseases Acts

A
  • very anti-women –> any woman could be accused of being a prostitute & arrested if she failed a trial or refused to do one
30
Q

What are the various reasons the Government passed the contagious diseases acts

A
  • to mitigate a health crisis
  • ensure the army isn’t agitated
  • to protect army health
  • to assert further control over women, with ignorance about subjecting women to maltreatment
31
Q

Give 2 ways the acts improved the lives of prostitutes

A
  • improvements in health from examination
  • economic benefits - better health, could do other work
32
Q

Give one example of how the Acts improved public health

A
  • there was a wider positive impact of ensuring wider awareness on the negative consequences of disease
33
Q

Give 2 ways in which the Act had a detrimental effect on women who were not prostitutes

A
  • Women could be fasley accused & subjected to maltreatment from examination
  • wider impact for all women who were portrayed as responsible for this
34
Q

What is the evidence that the acts did not improve public health

A
  • the government were selective about who they interviewed, & were careful not to interview women subjected to maltreatment
35
Q

What is the evidence that the acts did improve public health

A

194/1000 were infected, which fell to 37/1000

36
Q

Why might we not have the full picture of the Acts on the lives of women

A

nobody asked them

37
Q

What are the overall criticisms of the Contagious Diseases Acts

A
  • forceable, awful medical treatment
  • detaining women, arguably punishing & denying freedom
  • keeping a record
  • false accusations & mistakes were inevitable
  • targeting & stigmatising women
37
Q

What are the overall defences of the Contagious Diseases Acts

A
  • it was effective in improving public health, so its criticims could be justified:
  • army health is arguably more important than poor women
  • the morality of choice to be a prostitut
38
Q

What were Acton’s attitudes to the CDA

A
  • they were not-ideal, but necessary:
  • he thought that some things are unpleasant & there are moral problems, yet the govt can interfere with legislation which is worth it for public health
39
Q

What evidence is there to suggest that Acton wished to take credit for the Acts

A
  • He was on the Commission, & had been saying this is neccessary for the government for a while
40
Q

What societal issues did prostitution pose to the government

A
  • they don’t want to have open conversations, including socialogical & biological debates about responsibility in society
41
Q

Why is the Crimean war relevant?

A
  • (1854-56)
  • A royal commission on the health of the army was introduced as a result of the war
  • the royal commission then set up a committee of inquiry (after identifying VD to be an issue)
42
Q

what did the statistical department reveal about the health of the army?

A

In 1860, 37% of army hospital diseases were for venereal diseases

43
Q

What did Florence Nightingale and other liberals advocate for the 1862 committee?

A
  • for the army to end its reliance on prostitution, by introducing leisure activities instead
  • penalties for men who concealed that they had VD
44
Q

What did Sir John Liddell advocate for in the 1862 committee?

A
  • the government should regulate prostitutes for soldiers with frequent checks i.e. compulsory medical examinations
45
Q

How did the 1966 act extend the CDA?

A

women could be detained for up to 3 months in a lock hospital

46
Q

what changed in the terms of the CDA from 1866 to 1869?

A
  • extended coverage from towns to protected districts (e.g the distnace around garrison towns to 15 miles
  • women could be kept for up to year
  • fortnightly inspections of all known prostitutes were compulsory
47
Q

What could be seen as positive health improvements for women under the acts

A
  • Infected women sometimes travelled voluntarily to protected regions to receive free medical treatment
  • Frequent checks & timely treatmnet improved the health of prostitutes & reduced the cases of premature death by venereal diseases
48
Q

Which condition was reduced for women because of the CDA

A
  • reduction in scabies
49
Q

What was the positive imact on the army from the CDA in terms of reduction in a condition

A
  • The Act reduced hospital admission rates for syphilis within the army
  • In protected areas, 37 out of 1,000 soldiers were hospitalised with the disease, down from 194 out of 1,000
50
Q

Give an example of how women could be falsely accused because of the CDA

A
  • Mary Percy - a singer who was falsey accused of being a prostitute
  • The damage to her reputation meant she was black-listed at music halls & committed suicide in 1875
51
Q

Give an example of how poor medical knowledge hampered the treatment of diseases

A
  • Mercury, was commonly used as a treatment for syphilis
  • It caused serious side effects e.g loss of teeth, kidney failure & sometimes fatal poisoning
52
Q

How were the improvements in health limited because of the CDA

A
  • There were no check son men within the armed forced
  • This meant diseases were contained rather than eradicated
53
Q

In what way did the Acts offend many Victorians

A
  • The acts appeared to legalise prostitution by accepting that it could not be stopped
  • Attempts to regulate it were perceived as condoning it whcih offended many Victorians
54
Q

There is some evidence that the improvements to health meant that women spent…

A

longer working as prostitutes than they did before the Acts were passed

55
Q

In many ways, the CDAs make it harder for women to……because…

A
  • leave prostitution
  • some women’s rescue organisations refused to care for women from government hospitals as they opposed the Acts
56
Q

How did the CDA improve business for women

A
  • Certficates were given to disease-free prositutes on release,
  • becoming valuable assets - women who had them could charge clients more
57
Q

What was the impact of the CDA on medical experts

A
  • Medical experts set up the:
  • ‘Association for Promoting the Extension of the Contagious Diseases Act of 1866 to the Civillian Population’
  • This was supported by many clergy men as well as doctors
58
Q

Describe how the interviews about the impact of the CDAs were flawed

A
  • Most of the evidence came from the 1871 Royal Commission, which only interviewed ‘respectable’ witnesses like Anglican ministers & doctors
  • Prostitutes were not considered sufficiently respectable for the govt to consult, so hard to determine full impact as their perspective is largely unknown
59
Q

Describe the medical instrument used to carry out examinations on women

A
  • Speculums, were notoriously utilsied in a brutal way by doctors
  • They were conducted in the view of others, & were unhygienic, with evidence of cross contamination
60
Q

Describe the negative viewpoint parts of society had on the Acts

A
  • There was little immediate opposition to the acts,
  • but proposals to extend them to the civillian population provoked opposition from outside medical circles
  • who were concerned about the impact of the Acts on prositutes & all women
61
Q

How were the acts increasingly perceived as immoral & unfair

A
  • There was a growing feeling in Britain that prositutes were victims,
  • yet the Acts appeared to place all the blame of women for the problems of male sexuality & vice
62
Q

Who was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

A
  • first women to qualify as a physician and surgeon
  • radical figure in Victorian society
  • early figure in the suffragist movement
63
Q

What was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s views on CDAs

A
  • believed voluntary checks could prevent infections
  • supported the CDAs on the grounds that they would relieve the physical suffering of prostitutes who otherwise would not visit hospitals early enough or remain long enough to be successfully treated
64
Q

Summarise the significance of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s views on the CDAs

A
  • tolerant to the CDAs
  • believed that men should’ve had compulsory examination

Mr Silverman - History (32 decks)

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