US Army Service mens kit - Chemical Prophylactic WW2

markings item No. SNS58000 Spec No 3062-C

Since the early dawn of military maneuvers and activities, sexual hygiene and behavior have proven to be a major problem for the Worlds’ Armies, and WW2 proved to be no different. Soldiers on assignment overseas were often lonely, had time to spare, got homesick, or were just looking for female companionship… During the Great War, V.D. had caused the Army lost services of 18,000 servicemen per day. Although by 1944 this number had been reduced 30-fold, there were still around 606 servicemen incapacitated by V.D. every day. This drop in numbers was partly because of the Army’s effort to raise awareness about the dangers faced by servicemen through poor sexual hygiene, but also because of the important developments in medicine in the area of treatment of the disease. In late 1943 a case of gonorrhea required a hospital treatment of 30 days, and curing syphilis remained a 6-month ordeal – by mid 1944, the average case of gonorrhea was reduced to 5 days, and in many cases the patient remained on duty status while being treated. Two of the worst venereal diseases known to the Medical Department during the Second World War were gonorrhea and syphilis, consequently the majority of treatment and awareness programs had great emphasis on these two infections in particular. The discovery of HIV and AIDS would not be made for another 40-some years, and so this did not particularly pose a problem to U.S. servicemen during WW2.