During the 1960s, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) became much more prevalent. This is partially because of the "free love" movement, in which the idea of marriage was rejected and sex outside of marriage became accepted. One of the many STDs being spread rapidly during this time period was syphilis. In this poster, the main focus or the point trying to be made is that syphilis had become curable. To get the attention of the audience, the author of this poster appealed to the audience's emotions. The author used the picture of the dinosaurs along with the headline "As Old as Creation" to evoke emotion. By using the drawing of dinosaurs and the mellow blue/yellow color scheme, the author was able to attract audiences with something cute and even comforting rather than scaring people off with a very scientific or alarming poster. The headline provided a sense of relief to audiences, since the disease has been around for so long and a cure was finally discovered. Even the word "Now" being italicized is an example of pathos in this poster, emphasizing again that this disease had caused problems and even hurt/killed people but now syphilis will no longer be a problem. Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Pathos of Syphilis
During the 1960s, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) became much more prevalent. This is partially because of the "free love" movement, in which the idea of marriage was rejected and sex outside of marriage became accepted. One of the many STDs being spread rapidly during this time period was syphilis. In this poster, the main focus or the point trying to be made is that syphilis had become curable. To get the attention of the audience, the author of this poster appealed to the audience's emotions. The author used the picture of the dinosaurs along with the headline "As Old as Creation" to evoke emotion. By using the drawing of dinosaurs and the mellow blue/yellow color scheme, the author was able to attract audiences with something cute and even comforting rather than scaring people off with a very scientific or alarming poster. The headline provided a sense of relief to audiences, since the disease has been around for so long and a cure was finally discovered. Even the word "Now" being italicized is an example of pathos in this poster, emphasizing again that this disease had caused problems and even hurt/killed people but now syphilis will no longer be a problem. 
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I completely agree with you that this poster provided comfort for people. I like how you analyzed specific aspects of the poster such as the color scheme to show the pathos. I think that curing syphilis also showed the advancement in science. It showed that as a nation we are progressing in fighting deadly diseases.
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