[The literary impact of the propaganda campaign against veneral disease at the turn of the century].

The literary perception of venereal diseases in the XIXth century was radically modified by the big prophylactic campaign that began at its end. After writers presented a romantic vision of syphilis associated initially with pride and exaltation, came a generation distressed by the obsession and the phobia that the antivenereal reaction then generated. The moving elements of this campaign, were the extreme attention to overvalued statistics and excessive consideration of indirect transmission; but also such mythical concepts as parasyphilis, syphilitic diathesis, "le génie syphilitique" and especially "hérédosyphilis". This antivenereal campaign, appearing as a sanitary prophylaxis invented by the syphiligraphes, rapidly changed to a moral prophylaxis, using intensively dissuasive methods and generating among others a true propaganda literature. After World War I, the fear of a degeneration of the race, weakened by depopulation, caused an intensification of the propaganda. Its protectionist, xenophobic and intolerant nature then grew considerably in the militant literature to merge into the themes that have characterized the political speech of the Hitlerian period. The Allies and penicillin fortunately put an end to this delirious rhetoric.