eBay

8 pages.

Gifts & Exchange Section

Harvard College Library

Cambridge, Mass.

FOREWORD

2 * 8

Because of the need for non-technical descriptions of syphilis

and gonorrhea, the following four pamphlets have been written

particularly for the public:

SYPHILIS

GONORRHEA AND SYPHILIS IN INDUSTRY

GONORRHEA

CONGENITAL SYPHILIS

This pamphlet on Gonorrhea and Syphilis in Industry was

written by Nels A. Nelson, M.D., formerly Director of the

Division of Genitoinfectious Diseases, Massachusetts Depart-

ment of Public Health.

Published by the

Massachusetts Society for Social Hygiene, Inc.

1146 LITTLE BUILDING, BOSTON 16, MASSACHUSETTS

THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR SOCIAL HYGIENE, INC.

BOSTON, MASS.

Gonorrhea and Syphilis

in Industry

The manager of a Massachusetts bus company discharged a bus driver when it was discovered that the young man had gonorrhea; but the manager of a restaurant kept a cook at work who had the same disease. A "fashionable" Massachusetts boys' school discharged a sixty-year-old woman from her job in the school laundry because she had syphilis. She had to go to the poorhouse; but a nurse was allowed to go on with her training in a large hospital although she had syphilis. A married man with a family to support was discharged by a Massachusetts milk company because it was learned that he had syphilis. He and his family are now "on welfare"; but the director of a welfare canning project kept a needy woman at work although he knew that she was infected with the same disease.

Which of these employers were right: those who fired their employees or those who allowed them to keep on working? The Massachusetts Department of Public Health told the bus company and the boys' school and the milk company that they were wrong, and complimented the restaurant manager, the hospital superintendent and the director of the welfare canning project for their good sense in keeping their infected employees at work!

Why did the Department not only permit, but encourage the employment of persons who had these communicable diseases? The answer to that question hangs upon the one word "com-

municable."

THREE