Public Health

Due to illiteracy levels among the population, posters were a fundamental tool in the fight against venereal diseases. Images—direct and sincere—were the best weapon for raising awareness. It is important to note that antivenereal publicity was typical of the Republic.

The images on antivenereal posters associated women with death, considering them the only ones responsible for transmitting these diseases.

During the Second Spanish Republic, a law abolishing prostitution was passed with the aim of improving equality between men and women, and the dignity that women had. Sadly, during the war, conditions for sex workers worsened as a result of economic and material hardship.

Posters about prostitution showed the women as having menacing, almost inhuman, bodies, in contrast to other posters on different themes. This was a way of conveying a sense of danger to the person looking at the poster.

One of the main consequences of the stress caused by the war was the hundreds of thousands of cases of alcoholism. Alcohol was a cheap means of escape from the tensions of combat, which affected military and civilians alike.

Alcohol was one of the primary causes of psychological afflictions. It was also seen to be an invigorating tonic, and was often considered an indispensable part of people's diets.

Mental health care, which was worse than for other illnesses, focused on the issues caused by alcoholism and other drug abuse during the civil war.

Shell shock, which had already been identified in World War I, and the psychological impacts of combat (including fear, anger, and hysteria) were treated in the rear-guard hospitals that began to be established in the second year of the conflict.