Sex, Sin, and Science

A History of Syphilis in America

John Parascandola

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Hardback

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English

Praeger Publishers Inc
30 July 2008

History of medicine; Venereal diseases

Series: Healing Society: Disease, Medicine, and History

Social and cultural factors, as well as medical ones, help to shape the way we understand and react to diseases. In the case of a disease associated with sex, social and cultural factors figure especially large in its history. For example, moral and religious views influence almost everything connected with sex, and that includes sexually transmitted diseases. Syphilis thus provides an excellent case study to help understand the history of disease in a broader human context. This book covers the history of syphilis in America, from Colonial times to the present, as well as laying bare the origins and spread of the disease in Europe.

Several themes explored in the book illustrate ways in which non-medical factors influence our views of a disease and our reaction to it. One of these themes is the tendency to focus blame for the spread of a disease on a particular group (e.g., women, blacks, sinners). The balance between protecting the rights of individuals and protecting the public health, in issues such as whether to quarantine the infected and whether to require mandatory testing for the disease, is another theme. A third theme is the persistent reluctance of many Americans to discuss venereal disease openly because it involves sex, a subject that we are often not comfortable talking about.

By: John Parascandola
Imprint: Praeger Publishers Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 510g
ISBN: 9780275994303
ISBN 10: 0275994309
Series: Healing Society: Disease, Medicine, and History
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 30 July 2008
Recommended Age: From 7 to 17 years
Audience: College/higher education , Primary , A / AS level
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

John Parascandola is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Maryland. He has served as Chief of the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine, after which he became the Public Health Service Historian, a position he held until his retirement in 2004. He is also the author of The Development of American Pharmacology: John J. Abel and the Shaping of a Discipline (1992).

Reviews for Sex, Sin, and Science: A History of Syphilis in America

<p> This book contains enough information -- both charming and thought-provoking -- to aerate any lecture. . . . Well worth the price of admission is Parascandola's discussion of the Tuskegee experiment. . . . That section provides one of the most powerful discussions I've read on exploring the context of medicine to extrapolate meaning. Likewise, Parascandola does an excellent job of exploring the problems of syphilis infection after the development of antibiotics. - <p>Journal of Social History