The Contagious Disease Acts

The Morbid Curiosity Podcast

Hallie Lloyd

Cryptid, Serialkiller, Science, Disease, Medicine, Scary, Skeleton, Historyofmedicine, Social Sciences, Ghost, History, Medical, Anthropology, Monsters, Archeology, Murder, Creepy, Skeptic, Paranormal, Prison

4.8 • 634 Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2019

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1864, the British Parliament passed the Contagious Disease Acts, which attempted to regulate prostitution in hopes of protecting their troops from sexually transmitted infections, then known as venereal diseases. However, the public, the medical community, and the military all had different opinions on whether or not these acts were effective, and more importantly, whether or not they were ethical.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode was suggested by a listener, Allison, on Facebook. Surprise. I hope this cheers you up.
0:07.4	If you'd like to suggest a topic, you can do so on Twitter, at Morbid Podcast, on Facebook and
0:13.1	Instagram at Morbid Curiosity Podcast, and on our website, www.morbidCuriositypodcast.com. On the last episode of the MCP, we talked about the unfair
0:25.7	treatment of one woman who was thought to be a danger to public health, Mary Malin. It was a
0:31.3	complicated issue with many perspectives and no ideal solutions. In this episode, we're going to talk about many women who were treated
0:39.4	unfairly, because they too were blamed for a larger public health issue. This situation is even more
0:45.8	complex, and occurred around 50 years before typhoid Mary. Before we get into this topic,
0:52.0	I want to remind everyone that this occurred over a hundred years ago,
0:56.1	during a time when the scientific method was just beginning to gain traction.
1:00.5	Medicine was just starting to help rather than hinder,
1:03.5	and ideas about what was socially acceptable were very different from the ideas of today.
1:08.9	In much of the written resources on this topic, the concept of
1:12.4	morality, decency, and criminality were delineated by upper-class white Christians. The lower classes,
1:19.5	who were most affected by the laws we're going to talk about, were generally unable to read or write, so their views on this subject remain obscured. This is a form of
1:29.3	cultural bias, which we've talked about in previous episodes, but in this case, it's a culture
1:34.3	within a culture that's being observed and made assumptions about. This episode discusses
1:40.1	sexually transmitted infections and forced gynecological examinations.
1:44.8	If that's not something you want to hear about, this may be a good episode to skip.
2:00.6	Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so the mysterious and unsolved.
2:07.8	Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity,
2:12.8	and it has gripped hundreds of people throughout the ages.
2:16.4	I am one of those people. My name is Hallie,
	...

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