The Great Pox: The French Disease in Renaissance Europe

ISBN-13: 9780300213171 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 368 str.

Jon Arrizabalaga

Opis

One hundred and fifty years after the Black Death killed a third of the population of Western Europe, a new plague swept across the continent. The Great Pox - commonly known as the French disease - brought a different kind of horror: instead of killing its victims rapidly, it endured in their bodies for years, causing acute pain, disfigurement, and ultimately an agonizing death. In this study, three experts explore the impact of the new plague and society's reaction to its challenge. Using a range of contemporary sources, from the archives of charitable and sanitary institutions that coped with the sick to the medical tracts of those who sought to cure it, they provide a detailed account of the experience of the disease across Renaissance Italy as well as in France and Germany.