Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xvi, 264 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

1. "Known in early modern Europe by many names--the French Disease, the Bubas, and, eventually, syphilis--the Great Pox was a chronic disease that carried the stigma of sexuality and produced a slow and painful death. The main institution which treated it, the pox hospital, has come down to us as a stench-filled and overcrowded place that sought to treat the body and reform the soul. Using the sole surviving admissions book for Toledo, Spain's Hospital de Santiago, Cristian Berco reconstructs the lives of men and women afflicted with the pox by tracing their experiences before, during, and after their hospitalization. Through an innovative combination of medical, institutional, and notarial sources, he explores the physical and social lives of the patients. What were the social repercussions of living with a shameful disease? What did living with this chronic illness mean for careers and networks, love and families, and everyday relationships? From Body to Community is a textured analysis at once touched by the illness but not solely defined by it."--

Series statement

1. Toronto Iberic ; 21

Uniform title

1. Toronto Iberic.

Subject

1. Hospital de Santiago (Toledo, Spain) > History
2. Hospital de Santiago (Toledo, Spain)
3. 1600-1699
4. Sexually transmitted diseases > Spain > History > 17th century
5. Sexually transmitted diseases > History > Spain > 17th century
6. Diseases > History > Spain > 17th century
7. Syphilis > history
8. Syphilis > therapy
9. Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
10. Socioeconomic Factors > history
11. Hospitals > history
12. History, 17th Century
13. Diseases > Social aspects
14. Sexually transmitted diseases
15. Sexually transmitted diseases > Hospitals
16. Sexually transmitted diseases > Treatment
17. Spain

Genre/Form

1. History.

Contents

1. Getting sick: signs, sin, and social worth -- Encounters of the third kind: medical assumptions and patients -- Melting pot: the Hospital de Santiago's patients -- Safeguarding reputation: gender, hospitalization, and textiles -- Between body and soul: treatment at the Hospital de Santiago -- Getting hitched: pox, sexuality and marriage -- Making ends meet: disease, work, and family -- Playing nice with others: pox and community.

Owning institution

1. Columbia University Libraries

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.