IRB Media Summary of Scott W. Stern's The Trials of Nina McCall

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Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 Josephine Butler was a famous woman in England who had spoken out against the laws that governed prostitution. She was threatened and attacked by members of Parliament, her family, and even the mob.#2 The debate over prostitution was raging in England in the 1870s. On the one side was the regulationist side, which believed that prostitution should be regulated to minimize the harm it could cause. On the other side was the abolitionist side, which believed that prostitution should never be allowed to exist in any form.#3 The first time an attempt at regulation was made was in France in 1802, when Napoleon Bonaparte instituted a system where all prostitutes registered with the police and lived in a specific section of their city. If they refused to cooperate, they could be imprisoned.#4 Regulationism, or the French Plan, was a method of treating syphilis and gonorrhea that spread like a syphilitic rash. It began with a single, painless sore, and over time, it covered the hands, the feet, the limbs, the back, until the patient was completely engulfed.