By Jon Arrizabalaga, John Henderson, and Roger French. 352 pp., illustrated. New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 1997. $35. ISBN 0-300-06934-0.
In the last decade of the 15th century in Italy, there was aninvasion by the French, recurrent bubonic plague, floods, famines,earthquakes, intemperate cold, and then a new disease, loathsomeand incurable — the Great Pox, or French disease (MorbusGallicus). It had, in its apocalyptic appearance, a great effecton European society, politics, the church, and of course medicalthinking. The authors of this book are historians and writeas such: they are reluctant to identify the Great Pox with modernsyphilis, explaining that historical events should be examinedin the context of the knowledge and . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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