Surgeon-General Wants Churches to All Discuss Combatting Social Diseases, Feb. 1, 1919

From The Badin Bulletin, Feb. 1, 1919. The "social diseases" and "blood born diseases" in this article are venereal diseases.

Proposes Health Sunday. . . Surgeon-General Blue Wants Churches to Assist on February 9

Washington—Dr. Rupert Blue, Surgeon-General of the Public Health Service, has asked the ministers of the country to set aside February 9 as Health Sunday, and to preach sermons emphasizing the responsibility of the nation to protect returning soldiers and sailors and the community at large, and to take vigorous measures for combatting social disease.

A proclamation by the Surgeon-General has been sent to all ministers, with the request that they read it from their pulpits February 9. It states that the Government is asking the churches of the country to take an active part in meeting a great national emergency, and that the war made it necessary for the nation to face frankly and courageously the menace of the blood diseases.

Now the war is over, and the period of demobilization has begun, the proclamation says, drastic measures must be taken to prevent during this period those conditions in civilian life which made these diseases the greatest cause of disability in the army.

“In the army and navy, a program of law enforcement, medical measures, education, and the provision for wholesome recreation was adopted,” Dr. Blue states. “This program brought results. Now that the war is over, the cities and towns thru which the soldiers and sailors will go, and to which they will return upon demobilization, must be made as safe as the Camps from which they have gone. The fight against this menace to our national vitality and to our homes must be vigorously continued.

“It is the social responsibility of the communities, of which the churches of every denomination are a part, to continue the work carried on in time of war, in order that the world may be made safe not only for democracy, but for posterity.”