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WW1-Venereal Disesases

What are Venereal Diseases ?

Venereal diseases (VD), or as they are much more commonly referred to as now, are sexually transmitted infections. The more common VD's at the time were syphilis and gonorrhea.

What are Venereal Diseases ?

How troops were impacted?

How Troops were impacted?

Canada has a pretty clean memory of WW1. But Canada had one of the highest rates of VD's. Even at the start of the war, the new surroundings filled the men with a "sense of adventure". During their time at Salisbury Plain over a thousand men were reported as having a VD. And by the end of the war almost a sixth of the troops had a VD.

Treatments could be terrible and hospital stays were miserable (that might have been on purpose). The would have needed to stay in the hospitals for up to 60 days. Most people would make full recoveries and return to the battle field. The long stay however led to a problem. Troops would fake having a VD or purposely get the infections. French prostitutes even charged a higher rate if they had a VD for this exact reason.

The VD's were quite an issue for the military. Having men stay unusable for such long periods of time wasn't great. So personal prophylaxis was issued for every soldier. Even so, VD's were still a complication that continued well into WW2.

How They Tried To Prevent It?

How They Tried to Prevent it?

STI's had no known cure at the time and treatments would mean a long time of the battle fields. The best they could do was prevent it.

  • The military had many posters to educate/ shame men from resorting to prostitution.
  • Abstinence was heavily pushed.
  • They provided information how to use protective measure i.e. condoms.
  • They had random checks for diseases. This was done as VD's were heavily stigmatized and they couldn't count on self-reporting.
  • Pay could be withheld during treatment.
  • Women were told to be careful.
  • Red light districts were shut down.
  • Brothels would be checked for women with VD's and they could be arrested.
  • Their next of kin could be notified (that was stopped due to a suicide).
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