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Legal Guidance -
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
This Guidance Notice seeks
to give information to healers in
Please note that I am not a
qualified legal practitioner and healers affected by this legislation should
seek professional legal advice as appropriate.
Please read the introductory
guidance on the legislative process in the
Chapter 21 of the Venereal
Disease Act 1917 is reproduced below under the
terms of Crown Copyright Policy Guidance issued by HMSO (Her Majesty’s
Stationery Office). Copyright is owned
by the Crown and information on reproduction rights may be found on the HMSO
website at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/reproduction-of-legislation.htm
.
Background
At the time of the First
World War, there was concern within medical and Government circles about the high
number of soldiers returning from the fighting zones with venereal diseases and
about the potential for their partners at home also to become infected with
these diseases. The social stigma attached to visiting local doctors for
treatment of venereal diseases led the Government of the day to decide that it
would be appropriate to establish a network of publicly funded venereal disease
clinics across the nation and to fund these from the public purse. The
intention was that returning soldiers would be able to attend these clinics
discretely and without cost for treatment. At the same time, it was decided
that it would be appropriate to clamp down on people who were not qualified
medically from claiming to have potions and pills and other remedies that would
cure people of venereal diseases.
The Venereal Disease Act
1917 was passed, therefore, to enable the provision of the network of venereal
disease clinics and to prevent people who were not suitably qualified from
involvement in the treatment of venereal diseases. Although the legislation was
passed a long time ago, it remains on the Statute Book and is still in force.
This legislation creates an
absolute prohibition on the giving of advice or the offering of any kind of
remedy for the venereal diseases referred to in the Act by persons other than
suitably qualified medical practitioner. Healers such as Reiki healers may not
under any circumstance suggest that they can do anything to treat the diseases
covered by the Act or to give any guidance on the treatment of these diseases. If
they do so, they will be committing an offence and will be liable to
prosecution.
Reproduction
of the legislation
Venereal
Disease Act, 1917
CHAPTER 21
An Act to prevent the
treatment of Venereal Disease otherwise than by duly qualified medical
Practitioners, and to control the supply of Remedies therefor;
and for other matters connected therewith.
24th May 1917
Be
it enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice
and consent of the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and the Commons, in this Partliament
assembled and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1. –
(1) In any area in which this section is still in operation, a person shall
not, unless he is a duly qualified medical practitioner, for reward either
direct or indirect, treat any person for venereal disease or prescribe any
remedy therefor, or give any advice in connection
with the treatment thereof, whether the advice is given to the person to be
treated or to any other person.
(2) This section shall operate in any area to
which it is applied by order of the Local Government Board,
or, in
Provided that no order shall be made in
respect of any area until a scheme for the gratuitous treatment of persons in
that area suffering from venereal disease has been approved by the Local
Government Board, or, in Scotland and Ireland, the Local Government Board for
Scotland and Ireland respectively, and is already in operation.
2. (1)
A person shall not by any advertisement or any public notice or announcement
treat or offer to treat any person for venereal disease, or prescribe or offer
to prescribe any remedy therefore, or offer to give or give any advice in
connection with the treatment thereof.
(2) On and after the first
day of November nineteen hundred and seventeen a person shall not hold out or
recommend to the public by any notice or advertisement, or by any written or
printed papers or handbills, or by any label or words written or printed,
affixed to or delivered with, any packet, box, bottle, phial, or other inclosure containing the same, any pills, capsules,
powders, lozenges, tinctures, potions, cordials, electuaries, plaisters, unguents, salves, ointments, drops, lotions,
oils, spirits, medicated herbs and waters, chemical and official preparations
whatsoever, to be used or applied externally or internally as medicines or
medicaments for the prevention, cure, or relief of any venereal disease:
Provided that nothing in this section
shall apply to any advertisement, notification, notification, announcement,
recommendation, or holding out made or published by any local or public
authority or made or published with the sanction of the Local Government Board,
or, in Scotland and Ireland the Local Government Board for Scotland and Ireland
respectively, or to any publication sent only to duly qualified medical
practitioners or to wholesale or retail chemists for the purposes of their
business.
3. If
any person acts in contravention of any of the provisions of this Act, he shall
be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment, with or without hard
labour, or on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or
to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not exceeding six
months.
4. In this Act, the expression ‘venereal
disease’ means syphilis, gonorrhoea, or soft chancre.
5. This
Act may be cited as the Venereal Disease Act, 1917.
Date of posting:
30th January 2007
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