SKU: 54651931826

Sins of the Flesh: Responding to Sexual Disease in Early Modern Europe

Sale price$23.40 Regular price$26.00
Save 10%

Pay in installments of $6.50 with ShopPay, AfterPay and Klarna

Shipping Estimate
USA
  • USA
  • CAN

Ships within 48 hours · Estimated delivery Aug 19 - Aug 24

Promo Codes Available:

For Your Every Summer RSVP, with Code: SUMMER15

Description

Sins of the Flesh: Responding to Sexual Disease in Early Modern EuropeOverview Few illnesses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries carried the impact of the dreaded pox, a lethal sexually transmitted disease usually thought to be syphilis. Often believed to have arisen in Europe during the 1490s, by the early sixteenth century the disease quickly emerged as a powerful cultural force. Just as powerful were the responses to this new disease by doctors, bureaucrats, moralists, playwrights, and satirists. These

Overview

Few illnesses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries carried the impact of the dreaded “pox,” a lethal sexually transmitted disease usually thought to be syphilis. Often believed to have arisen in Europe during the 1490s, by the early sixteenth century the disease quickly emerged as a powerful cultural force. Just as powerful were the responses to this new disease by doctors, bureaucrats, moralists, playwrights, and satirists. These responses mark the subject of this collection.

The ten essays in this volume seek to gauge the impact of sexual disease on early modern society by exploring the rich variety of ways in which European culture reacted to the presence of a new deadly sexual infection. Articles about Europe’s “Scientific and Medical Responses” analyze how physicians incorporated the disease within existing intellectual frameworks and chart the array of medical practitioners who took up the fight against it. Studies of “Literary and Metaphoric Responses” chronicle how early modern writers put images of sexual infection and the diseased body to a range of rhetorical uses and political purposes. Finally, essays about “Institutional and Policing Responses” chronicle how these public health responses linked up with wider campaigns to police sexuality.

Sins of the Flesh brings together an international collection of researchers to offer new insights about medicine, sexuality, institutionalization, gender, nation, and representation in the early modern world.

Kevin Siena is assistant professor of history at Trent University. He is the author of Venereal Disease, Hospitals and the Urban Poor: London’s “Foul Wards” 1600-1800 (2004).

292 pp.
ISBN: 978-0-7727-2029-0 softcover
Published: 2005

Contents

Kevin Siena, “Introduction"

I. Scientific and Medical Responses
1. John Arrizabalaga, “Medical Responses to the ‘French Disease’ in Europe at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century”
2. David Gentilcore, “Charlatans, the Regulated Marketplace and the Treatment of Venereal Disease in Italy”
3. Darin Hayton, “Joseph Grünpeck’s Astrological Explanation of the French Disease”

II. Literary and Metaphoric Responses
4. Jonathan Gil Harris, “(Po)X Marks the Spot: How to ‘Read’ ‘Early Modern’ ‘Syphilis’ in The Three Ladies of London
5. Roze Hentschell, “Luxury and Lechery: Hunting the French Pox in Early Modern England”
6. Diane Cady, “Linguistic Dis-ease: Foreign Language as Sexual Disease in Early Modern England”
7. Domenico Zanrè, “French Diseases and Italian Responses: Representations of the mal francese in the Literature of Cinquecento Tuscany”

III. Institutional and Policing Responses
8. Laura J. McGough, “Quarantining Beauty: The French Disease in Early Modern Venice”
9. Mary Hewlett, “The French Connection: Syphilis and Sodomy in Late-Renaissance Lucca”
10. Kevin Siena, “The Clean and the Foul: Paupers and the Pox in London Hospitals, c.1550-c.1700”

Praise

“The collection employs a variety of disciplinary and methodological approaches to explore how “the pox” was interpreted and understood within different national and social contexts throughout early modern Europe... The disease as a cultural construct, not as a measurable/objective ailment, presents an intriguing promise for future study within other national context.”
 Erik Lizee, University of Alberta

Reviews

Journal of the History of Sexuality, 18:3 (September 2009), pp. 536-541. Reviewed by Lisa Forman Cody.

Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 25:1 (Spring 2008), pp. 279-280. Reviewed by Erik Lizee.

Shipping Notes
  • Free Standard Shipping on $100+ Orders to the USA.
  • Except Preorder products are shipped in 48 hours.
  • Delivery to the USA:
  1. Standard Shipping : 3-10 business days
  • If time is of the essence, please consider selecting expedited delivery for faster service.
Exchange/Return Notes
  • We offer a 30-day return/exchange service after receiving.
  • Final sale items are not eligible for returns or exchanges.
  • To process your return/exchange, please contact us at [email protected]
  • Please click here for more details>>> Return & Exchange Policy
SKU: 54651931826

Discover Niche Categories That Outsell

Top-Converting Item to Boost Your Average Order

4.2 ★★★★★
Based on 7 reviews
Sort
Highest Rating
Newest First
Oldest First
Product Reviews
K
Verified Purchase
Kimberly G
Boise, US
★★★★★ 5
delightful read
Format: Kindle
What a delightful read. The characters are awesome, the plot was so good, I loved it. I was intrigued and it kept me wanting more. Told in multiple pov, the book sucks you in and doesn’t let go. I cannot wait to read the next book.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2025
K
Verified Purchase
Kimberly B
Fort Morgan, US
★★★★★ 4
not bad
Format: Kindle
I loved the plot of this book. The characters just didn’t have a lot of depth. The connections and “love” just weren’t communicated very well in the writing. The author didn’t write the sweet psycho trope very well at all either. Lachlan was just a mess of a character.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2023
C
Verified Purchase
Carmen Alicea
Bozeman, US
★★★★★ 5
A Beta Worth Rooting For
Format: Kindle
In Spare, Violet Fox flips the omegaverse on its head, giving us a Beta heroine determined to make her mark. Joining the Beta Trials to support her sick father, she's thrown into a pack that doesn't want her, especially the possessive Alphas. But here's the twist: their sweet Omega turns out to be her scent match. Cue the angst, forbidden tension, and a slow-burn romance that will make your heart ache in the best way. Violet Fox delivers an emotional, refreshing take on the genre, proving Betas aren't "spares." They're stars.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2025
C
Verified Purchase
C. Hunter
Fort Morgan, US
★★★★★ 5
Beta, Alpha, Omega oh my!
Format: Kindle
Omegas are precious and given to Alphas & their packs... but the Betas want in too. To this end, the Beta government is rolling out its trial of assigning a Beta to each Alpha-Omega pack. But forcing a Beta into a pack where they are not wanted will not end well... Of course, no one expected the Omega to fall for the assigned Beta. Great read and cliffhanger
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2025
B
Verified Purchase
B. Stubby
Port Orchard, US
★★★★★ 3
A familiar story, just with…..less.
Format: Kindle
So, as other reviewers make clear, this is very similar to Pack Darling and The Beta. It’s much closer aligned with The Beta, in plot and maybe more like Pack Darling with characters. That being said, I don’t hate this…..but it wasn’t great either. It’s both books mentioned but just….less. Less angst, less emotion, less feeling. The plot feels very half fleshed out, and the “bad guy” feels underwhelming. I didn’t really feel any real emotions from and of the male leads, except maybe Oliver. The others fell sorta flat for me. And Mika makes herself out to be this big bad ass straight outta training and then we never see it from here again with the one fitting room incident as the exception. SPOILER: The whole, “Oh, I’m actually probably an Omega, but I don’t wanna be but I do actually wanna be but no one can ever know my secret that I do nothing to hide “ thing fell so flat. She never commutes to believing she was secretly an omega, but also mentions her “secret” a lot. It just felt so manufactured. I’m intrigued enough to read part 2 and see how the author closes everything out, but this is not one I’ll recommend or ever come back to.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2024

recommand products