Syphilis

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Syphilis in Early Modern Europe

Syphilis treatment at home: Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine.

As Boehrer (1990) suggests, syphilis is the quintessential disease of Renaissance Europe. It was recognisably a new disease, something that the ancient writers Hippocrates and Galen had not encountered and therefore one which undermined old certainties by demanding new treatments.
It was also complex, presenting the early modern physician with a challenging diagnostic task, for it incorporated old symptoms in new ways. For examples, it was not until 1879 that it was recognised that another sexually transmitted disease, gonorrhoea, was a separate, distinct, disease and not part of venereal syphilis as had been the dominant understanding in early modern Europe.
It was also mutable, changing over time, initially virulent, but quickly becoming less of an apocalyptic horror by the mid 1550s.
Its cause was unknown (and would remain so until the early twentieth century until the bacterium Treponema pallidum was identified in 1905) but that did not inhibit early modern physicians from suggesting possible origins.
Even its name was the subject of contention as the case study in this section demonstrates.

Books specifically on Syphilis in the Worth Library (there are other works which include chapters on the topic also):

Selected Reading

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