Easy to see why this was a 'hit'

I wrote an essay on films promoting health a few years ago, and in the course of my research I found that many of the earliest health films focused on raising awareness of venereal disease.

The rise in travel and recent conflicts overseas at the beginning of the 20th Century resulted in guys being exposed to two kinds of disease: malaria and VD.

Needless to say, the VD films proved to be very popular, since the many of the films tried to humanize the subject by presenting good guys led astray by "those kind of women," with ensuing shame and drama as the guy had to deal with a disease that dare not speak its name (the good girls who got VD provided even more opportunities for drama and sexual issues).

Like these VD films, "Traffic in Souls" engages its audience because it presents a subject which deals with forbidden lust and (implied) tawdry sex along with girls in dramatic distress - all the while promoting itself as a "lesson" film.

Eventually this kind of film would reach new heights - as in "Reefer Madness."

"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"