Syphilis, 1494–1923 Des Inoculations Syphilitiques. From the holdings of Center for the History of Medicine/Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine—Harvard Medical School. Syphilis was first reported in Europe in 1494 among soldiers (and their camp followers) involved in a war between France and Naples. The disease was striking in two ways: for its unpleasantness and for its status as a new disease, unknown to the ancient medical authorities. Syphilis would remain a significant social and medical problem through the mid-20th century. The “French Disease” Until the 19th century, syphilis was known by many different names, but the most common was the “French Disease.” (The French called it the “Neopolitan disease,”…

Spanish Influenza in North America, 1918–1919 Spanish Influenza, Three-Day Fever, The Flu. From the holdings of Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library—Harvard College Library. The Spanish influenza pandemic, which began in 1918, caught every nation by surprise. It infected an estimated 500 million people and killed 50 to 100 million of them in three waves. Governments around the world responded in ways that were reactive and almost ineffective before the pandemic ended in 1919 just as suddenly as it began one year earlier. The Spanish influenza pandemic differed from previous influenza pandemics in its unprecedented virulence. Its unique characteristics included unusually high case fatality, especially among 20– to 40–year-olds. Allies fighting…

Herbarius. Patauie impressus: [Johann Petri], anno domi[ni] [et]cetera lxxxv [1485]. From the holdings of Center for the History of Medicine/Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine—Harvard Medical School. In the late medieval and early modern periods, the term “pestilence” was principally used to refer to two diseases new to post–classical Europe: plague and syphilis. The apparent novelty of these diseases presented significant problems to the educated physicians who were the students and interpreters of the canonical medical works of Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna. In this medical tradition, there were no new diseases: all illness could be interpreted in terms of traditional humoral theory and Galenic physiology and medicine. But the devastating…

The Great Plague of London, 1665 Old Saint Paul’s: A Tale of the Plague and the Fire. From the holdings of Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library—Harvard College Library. The Great Plague of London in 1665 was the last in a long series of plague epidemics that first began in London in June 1499. The Great Plague killed between 75,000 and 100,000 of London’s rapidly expanding population of about 460,000. First suspected in late 1664, London’s plague began to spread in earnest eastwards in April 1665 from the destitute suburb of St. Giles through rat-infested alleys to the crowded and squalid parishes of Whitechapel and Stepney on its way to the…

The Prevention and Treatment of Epidemic Cholera. From the holdings of Andover–Harvard Theological Library—Harvard Divinity School. First appearing in Europe and North America beginning in 1831–1832 and presumed to have come from India, epidemic cholera returned and traveled around the world many times through the end of the century, killing many thousands. Causing profuse and violent cramps, vomiting and diarrhea, with dehydration so rapid and severe the blood thickens and the skin becomes deathlike and blue, cholera victims can die in a matter of hours. Because 19th-century transformations in industrial, urban, political, and cultural life were intimately connected with discussions of proper public health practices and causes of disease, attempts…