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• 1 2022-04-20T12:45:21-07:00 "Soldier -- Attention" Pamphlet 15 plain 2022-05-03T14:12:30-07:00 This pamphlet from the Board of Health of the Commonwealth of Virginia was circulated in response to the extraordinary spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) during the war. Although STIs didn’t often kill troops, they “resulted in loss of manpower, and the cure was expensive, time-consuming, and often ineffective” ("Venereal Diseases"). 
  
  Along with medical interventions, the United States also took a moral stance on the problem by discouraging all sexual activity among troops. Libraries, especially those near training camps, circulated pamphlets like this and books such as William Lee Howard’s Plain Facts on Sex Hygiene. This pamphlet deems sex with “bad women” as unpatriotic: “Every man who is immoral invites the ruin of the army and the death of himself and his comrades-in-arms.”  These interventions were successful. In the 20-month period of April 1917-November 1918, sexually transmitted infections in the army went down over 300% (Wiegand 37).