Syphilis: Then and Now

In the 1600s Peter Sartorius, a citizen and surgeon of Strasbourg, compared syphilis to ‘an angry dog’, which viciously threatened communities. These talks investigate the past, and present, of this notorious sexually transmitted disease. From stereotypes and scaremongering to laboratories and diagnostics.

Mona O’Brien (PhD student, University of Glasgow) explores how Europeans came to understand syphilis and some of the measures that they enacted in an attempt to control it during the period from the first pandemic outbreak (c.1495) until the 17th century.