The M. Family.—This family has for many years been known to most of the social and reformatory agencies working near San Francisco. Three generations at present being supported almost entirely by the public and all have been or will be complete social failures. The grandmother is an epileptic, defective individual now in the State Home for the Feeble-Minded. The woman always had very questionable morals and her children were brought up in an atmosphere of neglect and viciousness which resulted in immorality on the part of the daughters as soon as they were old enough to go about. The oldest of these daughters married at about nineteen years and both she and her husband were known to have syphilis. They have three children, all syphilitic, and so badly did they neglect these unfortunate little ones that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children brought the matter to the attention of the court and the children were placed in homes at the expense of the community. The second daughter, a feeble-minded girl, became a prostitute at about fifteen years of age and after several years of probation and a stay in a girls’ reformatory was finally sent to the Home for the Feeble-Minded where she now is. The third child, a lad of 17 years, is an epileptic imbecile with signs of congenital syphilis and the youngest child, a girl of twelve years, is also feeble-minded with severe and typical signs of congenital syphilis and a triple-plus Wasserman reaction [the Wasserman is the blood test given to diagnose syphilis]. If the grandmother, when a girl had been recognized as a feeble-minded individual and placed in the institution in which she now is, the community would have been saved many thousands of dollars which it is now spending in the care of her defective and undesirable offspring.

Source: Ethel M. Watters, “The Problem of the Woman Venereal Disease Carrier,” California State Journal of Medicine 17 (August 1919): 284–87, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1594082/.