LESSON 8
SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
Section I. THE ARMY'S SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE
CONTROL PROGRAM
8-1.
HISTORY
a. Prior to 1900, little attention was paid to diseases in the Army, except for the
professional care given to infected personnel and sporadic efforts at control. In the
period 1900-1912, The Surgeon General forced attention to the fact that sexually
transmitted disease was a serious problem and a real threat to the health and efficiency
of the Army. Influenced by the early work of Schaudinn and Erlich on the diagnosis and
treatment of syphilis, he initiated scientific studies on chemicals in the hope of finding a
chemical prophylactic against syphilis and gonorrhea. During this period also, the
Congress became interested in the sexually transmitted disease problem of the Armed
Forces and passed punitive legislation aimed at the soldier or sailor who became
noneffective because of this disease. These infections were declared to be "due to
misconduct" and the offender was punished by loss of his pay and was forced to make
up time lost for this reason at the end of his enlistment. (In 1912, prophylaxis for all
personnel who exposed themselves to sexually transmitted disease was made
compulsory, and unannounced semimonthly physical ("short arm") inspections of all
enlisted men were introduced.) During the ensuing 30 years, chemical and mechanical
prophylaxis combined with punishment in some form or other, constituted the main
elements of the sexually transmitted disease programs of the Army and Navy.
However, the experience of World War I had led to the realization that commanding
officers of all grades could exert a marked influence upon the off-duty activities of their
men if they took an active interest in their welfare. As a result, the Army Regulations on
sexually transmitted disease control published in 1923 emphasized the responsibility of
the commanding officer to the extent that the sexually transmitted disease rate of an
organization was to be considered a measure of the efficiency of the commander.
b. During the latter part of the 1930s, under the influence of a campaign
sponsored by the US Public Health Service to bring the problem into the open, it
became increasingly clear that legislating sexually transmitted disease and sexual
promiscuity into oblivion, while theoretically possible, was in practice utterly impossible.
The thinking in the Army gradually shifted around to the point of view that the sexually
transmitted diseases, being infectious states, should be looked upon as any other
infectious disease problem and treated accordingly. Particular concern was expressed
over the possibility that the punitive measures used in the Armed Forces were
conducive to concealment and were resulting in poor and inadequate treatment of many
cases. This opinion gained strong support among civilian public health authorities and
the Armed Forces and, as a result, the four years of World War II saw a
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8-2