No, it's not a foreign affairs item. It's what they called a group of laws created in the late 1910s. The laws were designed to eliminate venereal diseases. It started in an attempt to reduce prostitution around military bases, but it quickly expanded. Federal agents divided the nation into ten districts within which paid supervisors and field representatives were “to investigate the presence of alcohol, prostitution, and general female promiscuity in a given area.” Should investigators discover women they considered likely to have an STI, they had the legal authority to examine them, quarantine them indefinitely, and subject them to medical treatments that were thought to be a “magic bullet” but were known to be extremely painful and carry terrible side effects. At the time no effective treatment existed for syphilis or gonorrhea. The age listed for a first ‘offense’ or ‘delinquency’ was often as low as seven.
The agents had considerable leeway as to whom they subjected to the law. Some examples: One woman, for instance, was arrested and examined for defending a friend from the police…. One woman owed rent to a former sheriff…; another was arrested after changing jobs, when her former boss vengefully reported her to the health officer. One woman was arrested after her car broke down…. One woman was forcibly examined after just being on a date with a man who was drinking.
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