135. The Need for the special Protection of public Health.
Under capitalism the workers have always been compelled to live in unclean quarters of the towns, where epidemic disease is rife. It was only owing to the dread that they themselves would suffer from these epidemics, that the capitalists introduced certain measures to improve the sanitation of the areas in which their wage-slaves dwelt. As early as 1784 the British parliament manifested its liberal sentiments and began to concern itself about the workers. The reason for this activity was the report of a special parliamentary committee which had ascertained that a terrible epidemic of typhus had originated in the factories. Capitalism was only interested in the protection of public health in so far as this was necessary for its own safety.
As an outcome of the imperialist war, the condition of the great masses of the workers has changed considerably for the worse. The general circumstances, hunger, cold, etc., have given rise to devastating epidemics, causing widespread mortality, to successive outbreaks of cholera, typhus, and a new disease known as Spanish influenza. The last-named illness manifestly had a close connexion with the war. People’s constitutions, exhausted and shattered, had no power to resist the germs of this disease. Everywhere the mortality was unprecedentedly high, so that the epidemic had a truly catastrophic character.
The war left another legacy, an extraordinary diffusion of venereal diseases, and notably of syphilis. Vast numbers of the soldiers became infected with this disease, and then, returning home, introduced it into their villages.
Never have venereal diseases been so widespread as they are to-day.