Venereal Disease and Prostitution in the Reports of the Poor Law Commissioners, 1834-1850

"The Cinderella of medicine": sexually-transmitted diseases in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

“…The actual prevalence of venereal diseases in the Victorian period is hard to establish: hospital recordkeeping could be inaccurate, and Poor Law Commissioners' Reports did not enumerate venereally-diseased paupers admitted to workhouses.1 2 Most hospital cases were treated as outpatients. A Those seeking action were mostly opposed to any reintroduction of the Contagious Diseases Acts, expecting any scheme for checking the spread of these diseases to include men, on grounds of both justice and efficacy.…”

“…The actual prevalence of venereal diseases in the Victorian period is hard to establish: hospital recordkeeping could be inaccurate, and Poor Law Commissioners' Reports did not enumerate venereally-diseased paupers admitted to workhouses.1 2 Most hospital cases were treated as outpatients. A very few Lock hospitals specifically for venereal patients existed: other hospitals might allocate a few beds for VD cases, only admit patients under special conditions (such as innocent infection), or simply refuse admission.'…”