Control of Syphilis by Quarantine

Most local health officers are empowered to quarantine individuals with infectious venereal disease in order to prevent further spread of infection, but this power is seldom used. Instead, reliance is usually placed on persuasion and education, with the threat of quarantine reserved for the occasional patient who refuses to cooperate. Little has appeared in the literature concerning the use of quarantine or detention for the control of venereal disease, as applied as an emergency measure in several States during the recent war. So far as is known to the author, only one State, South Carolina, used its quarantine powers as a routine, state-wide, and continuing activity. This report is a discussion of the factors leading up to the adoption of this policy, and of the administrative results achieved in its first year of operation. Early in the war many important military installations and training camps were established or expanded in the State of South Carolina. Because of the high prevalence of syphilis and gonorrhea in the civilian population, introduction of scores of thousands of men in uniform into the State created new or intensified old problems of civilian and military venereal disease control. Extraordinary measures were deemed both necessary and justifiable in the interests of protecting civilian health and furthering the prosecution of the war. The first important move was to establish facilities for insuring adequate treatment of persons suspected of contributing to the spread of venereal disease among military personnel and for whom there was reason to believe that methods of ordinary treatment would not suffice. Three hospitals for administering intensi've syphilis therapy, and for supervised sulfonamide treatment for gonorrhea, were organized in the latter part of 1942 and early in 1943. Administered by the State Board of Health, these institutions were financed by Federal funds made available through the Lanham Act.