Sex, Sin, and Science: A History of Syphilis in America

by Parascandola, John

• ISBN13: 9780275994303
• ISBN10: 0275994309
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-07-01
• Publisher: PRAEGER AGENCY ACCOUNT

Summary

Social and cultural factors, as well as medical ones, help to shape the way we understand and react to diseases. In the case of a disease associated with sex, social and cultural factors figure especially large in its history. For example, moral and religious views influence almost everything connected with sex, and that includes sexually transmitted diseases. Syphilis thus provides an excellent case study to help understand the history of disease in a broader human context. This book covers the history of syphilis in America, from Colonial times to the present, as well as laying bare the origins and spread of the disease in Europe.

Author Biography

John Parascandola is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Maryland. He was Chief of the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine, after which he became the Public Health Service Historian.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Series Foreword	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction	p. xv
The Great Pox: Origins and European Background	p. 1
A "Secret Disease": Syphilis in America before the First World War	p. 23
"Continence Is Not Incompatible with Health": Syphilis in World War I	p. 47
"Congress Apparently Thought the Spirochetes of Syphilis Were Demobilized": The Interwar Years	p. 71
"Fool the Axis-Use Prophylaxis": Syphilis in World War II	p. 99
"Magic in the Form of Penicillin": Syphilis in America since World War II	p. 133
Notes	p. 155
Bibliography	p. 183
Index	p. 189
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