6 - Syphilis and Confinement

Summary

Introduced into Europe in the mid-1490s, the disease called morbus gallicus typically has been explained by medical historians through use of the term “syphilis.” The question whether the mal de Naples, Franzosenkrankheit, or the French pox existed in Europe before that time, or whether this disease was imported from the New World, has been vehemently debated by medical historians for decades. There can be no doubt, however, regarding the tremendous impact that syphilis has had on social and public life since the late fifteenth century.

In the summer of 1496, morbus gallicus appeared in numerous German cities. Whether “old” or “new,” this contagious disease was recognized as a special entity for which a novel term had to be coined. So horrible were its terrors that it was vital for sufferers and healers alike to define and describe it, thereby confronting the unknown and rendering the strange familiar. Medical experts and lay persons everywhere were engaged in a “disease hunt.” In the beginning the profile of this illness often perplexed both physicians and lay persons, as we learn from a late-fifteenth-century German chronicler who recorded some of the clinical details of the “strange” disease:

In the year 1496, there began an unheard-of disease in many nations and among both sexes. The medical people and physicians were unable to find it in the books of their faculties. The disease was worst at night, when the boils from it tortured patients mercilessly. Horned ulcers and various boils came forth deforming the entire body, which even when they were treated with a poultice or salve became worse. Medical people could not cure it and theologians called it a just punishment for people's sins and perversities.