KV 1868:

In 1867 it was decided by the NI Government that a hospital should be established at Soerabaija with 300 places for syphilitic female patients. This hospital is also known as the Pegirian hospital.

The Koloniaal Verslag 1886/1887 mentions that in the Pegirian institute sick prostitutes were nursed and that the number of admissions in 1885 was 1967 patients. 6 of these patients deceased, 1733 left the institution recovered and 228 were still present by the end of that year.

The number of admissions in 1886 was 2008, of whom 4 deceased and 1813 left the establishment recovered.

Later in this century the policy of the NI authorities concerning syphilis became formulated in regulations of 1852 (averting the harmful consequences resulting from prostitution) and a larger budget became available in the fight against venereal diseases. These regulations followed the French system: registration of all prostitutes, compulsory examination, if necessary followed by treatment and the assembling of the women in brothels wherever possible. The regulations became operative in most residencies of Java and in some places in the Outer Provinces.
The effect of all these measures was questionable and so the 1852 regulation was withdrawn in 1874.
The combat against prostitution became a matter of ‘police regulations’ henceforth and entrusted to the local authorities.

The Pegirian hospital was founded by the government, but it only continued its existence to the 1st March 1911, like all the other institutions to treat syphilitic women.

The vast category of hospitals for syphilis closed due to a drastic change in medical policies. This occurred in 1911, when the Civil Medical Service executed the recommendations of the Reorganization Commission of 1906 relating to the inspection and care of patients with syphilis. The Commission based its conclusion on the fact that there was no evidence that the financial means used for the inspection and the compulsory hospitalization of prostitutes had achieved a positive effect.
Internationally this kind of regulations had already been condemned in 1877, when the Congress held at Geneva pronounced: “La Section d’Hygiène constate le complet insucces de tous les systèmes de police des moeurs ayant pour but de règlementer la pros-titution…” In 1908, la France abolished its legal regulations concerning prostitution and the NI Government followed these international developments by abolishing the medical examinations of prostitutes by physicians from 1 March 1911. Consequently, from this date all the hospitals for women with syphilis were closed.