Medical Responses to the ‘French Disease’ in Europe at the turn of the Sixteenth Century
The ‘French Disease’ (morbus gallicus) is the most popular name for an apparently new condition that quickly spread throughout Europe in the 1490s. It was perceived as a loathsome and incurable disease consisting of severe aches in the bones and of sores usually beginning in the genitals, but eventu...
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| Tipo de recurso: | otro |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2005 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/35691 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/35691 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | French Disease Medical Reponses Sixteenth century Morbus gallicus Europe |
| Sumario: | The ‘French Disease’ (morbus gallicus) is the most popular name for an apparently new condition that quickly spread throughout Europe in the 1490s. It was perceived as a loathsome and incurable disease consisting of severe aches in the bones and of sores usually beginning in the genitals, but eventually covering the whole body. Like plague and other infectious diseases, it damaged all social strata and ravaged the most humble people, but its wide diffusion among courts and urban patriciate — along with the quantity and expressiveness of surviving historical sources referring to these elites—has promoted an image of the ‘French Disease’ as a condition typical of the privileged social strata. |
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