The Control of Venereal Diseases (1913) Report to the Local Government Board on Venereal Disease. By Dr. R. W. Johnstone. With an introduction by the Medical Officer of the Board. Cd. 7029. London: Wyman and Sons, a Fetter-lane; Edinburgh : H.M. Stationery Office; Dublin: E. Ponsonby; Foreign and Colonial Agent: T. Fisher Unwin, London. The question of the control of venereal diseases is at last coming to the front and being discussed in a more open and reasonable spirit. It is not to our credit as a nation that we have deliberately shunned and even pretended to be ignorant of a disease which, though it may not claim so many victims, is yet responsible for more misery and more suffering than tuberculosis. Now that some public spirit has been aroused, the Government, in answer to the request of the doctors, has appointed a Commission, and the report of a special inquiry, prepared for the Local Government Board by Dr. Johnstone, has recently been published. This report gives a short account of these diseases and discusses the measures which, in the opinion of the writer, should be adopted for their control. As there are no reliable figures available, it is impossible to make an accurate estimate of their prevalence, but on consideration of certain data & rough guess, mentioned in the report, suggests that there are about 500,000 persons in London alone suffering at this moment from syphilis.