But not only in the clear, cool air of American State Departments of
Health is the knowledge and love of sexual cleanliness fructifying. In the
_Dublin Review_ for January-March, 1922, there is a wonderfully fine
article on "The Church and Prostitution," by the Right Rev. Monsignor
Provost W.F. Brown, D.D., V.G., in which he quotes from a very recent
Moral Theology, "De Castitate," by the Rev. A. Vermeersch, S.J., Professor
of Moral Theology at the Gregorian University, Rome, published in May,
1921. The author of "De Castitate" gives brief answers to three questions
put to him, which Mgr. Brown quotes in the original Latin, and of which
the following is a translation furnished by a Catholic priest:--

"You ask

1. Whether or not it is formally sinful to use antiseptic ointment
before illicit intercourse.

2. Whether or not the use of such ointment may be advocated.

3. Whether or not it is lawful for chemists to sell it.

Ad. 1. Although it seems that in England (_cf. Times_, January,
1917) some have made a scrupulous distinction between the use of
this ointment _before_ and _after_, and have forbidden the former
while approving the latter, you need make no such distinction (of
course, supposing the ointment is not used by a woman to
sterilize). It is not wrong to seek means, indifferent in
themselves, which will prevent the evil consequences of sin.

Ad. 2. It would indeed be a sin to reveal such drugs or to persuade
their use with the intention to induce a man to commit sin; but