LENGTH: 22 min
CATEGORY: Educational & Instructional, Sound, Black & White
DIRECTOR: Arthur Lubin
PRODUCER/PUBLISHER: Walter Wanger, US Public Health Service
Warning: The film contains explicit images of disease and intrusive medical treatment. Viewer discretion advised.
Convinced that motion pictures could convey information more effectively than almost any other medium, the United States Public Health Service, led by Dr. Thomas Parran, produced or contributed to about a dozen films on venereal disease in the 1930s and ‘40s. Some were aimed at clinicians, others at soldiers, and others at the public. Parran and his colleagues at the PHS sought to frame the battle against VD as a public health concern—how to prevent it, how to treat it—rather than a moral one focused on abstinence. Read Essay…
View another film featured in the essay.
Film Stills from To the People
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NLM Historical Audiovisuals Collection
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