This paper seeks to account for the development of a public health education policy with respect to venereal disease during the period 1916–1926. Two competing pressure groups, the National Council for Combatting Venereal Disease and the Society for the Prevention of Venereal Disease, defended opposing programmes; the one based on moral education (NCCVD) and the other (SPVD) on medical prophylaxis. Many of the interests represented by the groups and the political dimensions that they took, were influenced by factors only very tangentially connected to health education.

Any account of the development of policy in this field needs placing in the context of the early history of nineteenth-century anti-vice crusades; the role of the Army Medical Corps during the 1914–18 war; and the bureaucratic protectionism of the Ministry of Health personnel.