Die Geisel der Menschheit

This American Medical Association (AMA) and U.S. Public Health Service (PHS)-sponsored film aims to present the most current knowledge about causes, effects, and treatment of syphilis. Remarks by the heads of the AMA and PHS open the film, and doctors are shown lecturing and describing symptoms and indications of primary and secondary syphilis. Clinical techniques for examining patients and testing for syphilis are shown. Recommended treatments including arsenic, bismuth, and mercury for various manifestations and duration of disease are presented.

A quack doctor 'cures' a victim of venereal disease, whose baby is later born infected.

Tells the life story of Danish author Karen Blixen, who at the beginning of the 20th century moved to Africa to build a new life for herself. The film is based on her 1937 autobiographical novel.

A short animated War Office commissioned health education film, showing the fate of each of the 6 jungle soldiers.

Jurgen Vanderspek (a.k.a. James Vanderbacon) is a senior in high school. He is a loudmouthed macho who loves to tell juicy anecdotes about his sexual escapades, but actually, he is still a virgin. When, one drunken evening, Cissy ends up in his bed, Jurgen gets much more than he bargained for.

The story of John Wilmot, a.k.a. the Earl of Rochester, a 17th century poet who famously drank and debauched his way to an early grave, only to earn posthumous critical acclaim for his life's work.

In New York City, a relationship is threatened when a young man discovers he's caught syphilis from a tryst with a waitress named Ellie. This threatens his relationship with a new girl. Film critic Amy Taubin co-stars as the new girl who gets the bad news. The director is apparently the same man who edited Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.

January, 1947. The public receives the news of Al Capone's death with indifference, although twenty years earlier he had ruled Chicago's crime underworld with brute force and corrupting many touchable individuals. Until the day the head of the Untouchables Brigade, Eliot Ness, entered the scene. Since then, a cruel battle between the two of them began, a battle that ended in trial, conviction, disease, insanity and death.

A young beauty queen travels to New York to further her modelling career, but contracts syphilis after being tricked into a sexual encounter. She is torn between the prospect of a slow, intensive but proven therapy and a supposed miracle cure.

Adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts.

Diagnosis of gonorrhea should be done by clinical and laboratory investigation. The physician and patients are shown in the physician's office and examining room. The patients remove their clothing, and the physician takes samples from the end of the penis and makes thin smear slides from them. The techniques for stripping gonococci from male and female patients with chronic gonorrhea are shown in drawings and live footage. The physician is shown getting and preparing a urine sample for laboratory testing for the presence of gonococci, including using a hand-cranked centrifuge. The material is packaged to be sent away for laboratory diagnosis by gram stain and culture.

Bob, John, and Edward--three young boys growing up in the same neighborhood--have vastly-different experiences with sex. Bob's father patiently explains "the birds and the bees" to him, and even takes him to a hospital to see the effects of venereal disease.

A propagandistic melodrama recounting the dangers and horrors of venereal disease.

Describes the symptoms of gonorrhea and syphillis, with warnings of the consequences of avoiding treatment. Discusses some of the prevalent myths about contracting these diseases and stresses the importance of consulting a doctor if infection is suspected.

A dramatic comparison between the mating habits of animals and the way humans choose their own partners. The film is now considered to be a lost film.

In this film, servicemen are strongly urged to forgo illicit and casual sex because it is degrading and contrary to divine will. The joys of marriage and family are stressed. Long-term happiness should be the goal, not immediate gratification. A medical officer discusses sexual abstinence, saying that it will not adversely affect a man's virility. A commanding officer points out that sexual promiscuity among troops is not just the concern of the medical officer and the chaplain. He says that self-control should be practiced by everyone. Marriage and family should be the goal of every man. A chaplain speaks of abstinence and self-control as obedience to divine law. Shots include: sailors with their families; a wedding; sailors picking up girls and visiting prostitutes. There is some animation.

A doctor who believes that only the immoral catch syphilis reconsiders his stance.

A painter with syphilis infects his brother's wife and the child born of their affair.

After a historical excursus on the most common venereal diseases, doctors report on various cases of infection, each illustrated in the manner of amateurish reportage films.

A tyrannical landowner terrorizes his wife and seduces the daughter of one of his employees.