GROUP 1 Reading Questions

3

The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century)

Cruising speed

. . h d" w to Europe, as is attested

:;,h:ir:hoi~i~~~~~~d tit~ ande:ss~h:~tr:S~i~~:t~h~ oti~~le~~~e~~~~h ~~:uh~d~na~e:n;sfa~~h~i~s:n~l:a~l;b:~ame led pronounced from the beginning of the sixteenth century onwar sU. 1 . h H tten

d. k this m 1508 nc von u Johannes Bene ictus rema_r s ohich the Fren~h disease was most

indicates that the penod ~urmg w As for Grunpeck, he says virulent lasted no more t an seven bt_arsd to make a pact with the

dthat for fihveh yecaorus l~od~o:;h:r~:eeroit ;:nted in complete freedom. 1sease, w ic Fracastor says:

. . . (lS46) still fully active it is no Although this pestilential sickness is at present h , tulae' have been . fi For twenty years or so t e pus

longer the same as lt was at rst. the ummas of the following stage are more less numerous; on the other hand, g b h fi t Nearly six

h h osite was found to e t e case at rs .... common, w ereas t e opp h d d t'cally 'Pustulae' are now only to h · k e more c ange rama t • years ago t e sic ness one b f . a d the pains are negligible or very be found on a very small num er o pat1heno~~v:r and everyone is struck by the l. h Th mas are very common, • . l h.

s ig t. e gum h . . 1 which turns the patients into aug ing loss of the hair, and body air inh genera' b ows others have bald heads. stocks: some have no beards, ot ers no eye r ,

Fracastor, to whom we shall be referring again, collncnl~d~~~hg~: 't: . . d 1 and very soon it w1

~~~~::sstble 1 ~veneb;nce~ntagion, for the virus is getting weaker day

by day.' ho inspired by this observation, There were even some w ' . d h d the imminent end of the sinister disease, an . webre ras

announce . . d Th 0

will ecome enough to lay down precise expiry- ates. e P x

The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century) 51

weaker and disappear after having tortured the human race for eighty years, announces Brassavoli. Pintor had settled on 1500 as the date of its disappearance, Maynardus on 1584 ....

Other doctors were optimistic without being so peremptory. Falloppio declares that the pox has become so weak that by his time (1564) it was easy to be rid of it. Likewise Ambroise Pare writes in the middle of the sixteenth century that 'the pox as it is at present is much less cruel and much easier to cure than at the time it first appeared; it is clearly becoming milder with every passing day ... to such an extent that it looks as if it will disappear in due course.'

1 Pare adds mischievously that doctors, who are not in the

profession for the love of it, attribute this alleviation to the excellence of their remedies.

The observations of the doctors are echoed by the chroniclers. 'It is a dangerous malady,' writes Jean de Bordigne in 1529, 'which at first was no less to be feared than leprosy; however, with the passage of time its fury has been mitigated to some extent, and it is now neither powerful nor contagious ... '. 2 'This sickness,' writes another chronicler, 'which until recently was unknown in our hemisphere ... was for a few years so terrible that it should rightly be described as a very cruel plague .... People of all ages and of both sexes died from it, and a large number of those who were attacked by it were left deformed or mutilated, and suffered almost continual torments .... It is true that after several years the poison lost its malignancy.' 3

It seems, then, that after having spread like lightning in the years 1510-20 the pox kept to a 'cruising speed', foreshadowing the insidious and discreet character it was subsequently to adopt. On the other hand, the epidemic gained in extent what it had lost in intensity, reaching the Mediterranean coast of Africa, the Seychelles, India, China and Japan. It is probable that India had been affected from the beginning of the sixteenth century, by means of both the land route (via Asia Minor and Syria) and the sea route, perhaps since Vasco da Gama's voyage which left Lisbon on 8 July 1497 and arrived in Calcutta, on the west coast of India, on 17 May 1498. The disease at that time went unCler the evocative name of 'phiranga' (disease of the Franks). The epidemic reached the Malay Archipelago, then Canton (under the name of Canton rash), which brought the epidemic to China. It moved speedily from China to Japan, perhaps 'thanks to' Chinese pirates. The first reference to the disease in Japan occurs in a medical treatise in 1512 where it is described as 'Chinese ulcer': 'in this ninth year of Eisho's era, there are many oozing ulcers and from time to time one comes across pustules or ulcers like upturned flowers' (Takeda Sh6kei). 4 There

2 The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century) 5

us descri tions of syphilis in Chinese medical works of are numero . d . p hich the disease is often referred to, as 1t ;vas the same peno ' m wb the evocative term 'plum-tree p01son or soon after ml Jaran,h y ' leer' alone being sufficient to evoke 'plum-tree u cer - t e term u

syp~lis.h . h h thm of the disease did not deceive such T e c ange m t e r YI h . 15 79 was prepared to concede

shrewd doctors al Fkde i w o 'ful though the pains remained that the disease oo ,e ~~s ~:d i~ his clemency destroys this atroc10us. He adds. udnle h . bri"dled lust the venereal

n mo erate t eir un ' b h scourge, or me d" d ill I believe always e t e sickness will never ie out an w ' ' companion of the human race'. . ·d hilis to be

Unlike Westerners, the Japanesle did nlo~ cons1 ~h~~~isease. 'In h s of sin but a natural ca amity 1 e any o . . '

t e wage ' ' rks the Portuguese Jesuit Luis Fr01s m 1585, wl our cduntry, rbma fo 1 and shameful thing to contract a venerea cdons1 erl1t Jto a~ a me~ and women consider it to be an everyday

isease. n ap ' d f · ,5 occurrence, and are nhot ashhame h dlt~voked when it appeared, it

As for the terror t at t e pox a . had by no means disappeared, as Erasmus attests.

if I were aske~ which am?ngst all thed dis:~s~: ki~~i~~ef:~:~~:~p~:~r7.0~~~ ~h7r that it is this .sickness which h~s ~ag:ic~tt t~ afi the countries of Europe, Asia and other contagion has ~ver sprea s hq h ldy f th entire body is so resistant to the

f · , Wh t g on takes sue a o o e ' I A nca. at con a I ·1 d tortures him so cruelly? .... t d. · · f t the sufferer so east y, an . . art of me ic~ne, in ec s . d dful in the other contagions: pains, infecnon, alone combines all that

15 rea t which moreover does not

danger of death, and painful and repugnant treatmen ' ,

"' lead to complete recovery.

Fracastor, the father of 'syphilis'

(G. 1 mo Fracastoro) was born in Verona in Jerome Fracastfr 11 irot~dent of Copernicus at Padua University, 1483. Hhe wasda d b~~hsphilosophy and medicine; he later became where e stu 1e .1 of Trent He wrote numerous doctor to the Fathers of thd Co~nf~mous in. 1553 in his country works, and died, respecte an work in particular which made residence near Verona. It was one ll" hi ch appeared in him famous: Syphilis sive morbus ga icus · ... , h h a hundred 15307 and enjoyed_ an immense success, gomg t T~~Yon poem in

~::i~,d~~i~h:s e~f t~O~de~:t1: Si'i~~::r ih7~?~~:i :ri~~e S~he~ ~:;cl coml'.ared toh Vlrfgfil sd Gde~h~,c~~n by overturning his altars and Syph1lus, w o o en e

The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century) 53

replacing them with altars to King Alcithoiis, whose flocks he tended. To punish him, the Sun God sent him the venereal disease which the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside named syphilis in memory of the first person to suffer from it. Thus the name syphilis was born, though it was practically abandoned until the end of the eighteenth century, doctors and public alike preferring to use the word 'pox'.

Fracastor's poetic imagination and elegance in no way detract from his precision as a doctor. 8 As for the ideas expressed in Syphilis, there is nothing new. Fracastor mentions the theory that the disease originates in the Americas without sanctioning it, for he attributes it to a harmful conjunction of the stars. The treatment he recommends is that of his predecessors, such as the therapy with mercury and gaiac.

On the other hand, the treatise on contagious diseases which he published fifteen years later' contains newer ideas. As we have already seen, he points out modifications in the disease; most importantly, though, he has an inspired intuition about the agent of the contagion, picturing the disease as being caused by the multiplication and spread within the body of 'tiny invisible living things' ('particulas vero minimas et insensibiles').

What is the pox?

As far as 'modernists' are concerned ('modern', in the medical sense, meaning nineteenth century) there has been a theoretical Renaissance in medicine, and they scarcely distinguish between the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the Middle Ages, dominated by the Hippocratic-Galenic theory of the humours. Nonetheless, there was a change in the subject-matter of medicine from the sixteenth century onwards. There were local changes, such as the birth of anatomy and physiology (Vesalius) or the discovery of the circulation of the blood (Harvey); there were also structural changes, such as the beginning of medical research which parallelled the era of the great doctors. In this context, the pox was, in the sixteenth century, the object of medical attention whose importance has too often been underestimated.

From the very beginning attempts were made to define the new disease. In France, Jacques de Bethencourt was, in 1527, the first to deal with the pox.

10 This doctor from Rouen was ideally placed,

for the pox, known in Rouen as 'la grande gorre' was very widespread there ('Only gold can rid you of gorre de Rouen and crotte de Paris' warns a sixteenth century dictum). In accord with

66 The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century)

the Empire, moreover), a special refuge for_pox-victims was set up as soon as the epidemic appeared m the city, and was replaced a few years later by a special establishment _(Blatterhaus) whe_re ," progressive treatment based on ga1ac was mst1tuted at the cny s expense. 39

Prostitution becomes an issue

Everyone agreed that it was a scan_dal that no public prophylactic measures were being taken. Montaigne wntes, reasonably enough, that 'we are taught how to live when life has already passed us by. A hundred schoolboys have caught the pox before they have studied Aristotle on temperance' (Essais, I, 26). In any case, temperance is not an easy virtue to practise, and doctors do not dare to advocate it. In its absence one should at least avoid the greatest dangers, beginning with prostitutes ....

The danger represented by prostitutes as far as the pox was concerned was recognized very early on. By 1500, when the terrible epidemic had only b_een around_ for a few ye_ars, Torella was demanding that both c1V1l and religious authormes should appoint matrons whose primary task would be to examme streetwalkers. If found to be infected, the latter were to be consigned to a place designated by the parish or the lord of the manor for treatment, and detained until they were fully recovered. 40 . .

Ruy Diaz de Isla also pointed out the dangers of prostitution. In fact he even went so far as to anticipate the modern nollon of_ a health certificate by calling for prostitutes to be obliged to obtam certificates attesting that they had been _completely cured before resuming their former activities. Accordmg to him, even servmg- girls in inns should not be emp_loyed without a certificate of health - which raises the question, discussed from the begmnmg of the sixteenth century onwards, of what was to be done about casual prostitution.

It seems that the first attempts to monitor the health of prostitutes took place in Spain, notably in Valencia. There was nothing of the kind in France, and contemporary commentators do not even express the pious hope that somethmg should be done. A few authors content themselves with pointing out the danger, 'particularly for the person who frequents whores', as Rondelet puts it. 41 Brassavoli of Ferrara, _the d1stmgmshed doctor to kings and popes, and partisan of_ ga1ac, cites t!;e. case of a bea_ut1ful woman of breeding with gemtal ulcerauons. First she contammated

The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century) 67 one man,' he says, 'then two, then three, th~n a hundred, for she was a prostitute, and a very beautiful woman besides.'

Ferne!, with his_ characteristic perceptiveness, remarks that 'one often catches th_e sickness from a wench who is not yet infected, by lymg with her 1mmed1ately after someone who is tainted.'

A literary theme

Fortunately for posteri_ty, doctors were not the only ones to write on the pox. As Rabelais has already illustrated, sixteenth-century literature. was . qmck to seize on such a nch theme, with the opportumt1es It offered to those with a bent for moralizing or social satire ... . So,_ for example~ we discover in a work by Erasmus42 a genuine, 1f s_atmcal, reflect10n on the prevention of the pox - a problem which the donors of the Renaissance neglected. Four centuries before Fourmer, Erasmus add_resses the question of syphilis and marna~e. Can one_ break a_leg1t1m~tely contracted marriage? asks Petronms. Yes, replies Gabnel, 1f this marriage has been illegitimated by fraud, such as when the man has hidden the fact that he was 'slave to that very strict mistress, Syphilis' (Erasmus is the first to use the word as a synonym for the pox). In fact, pursues Gabriel, marnage can only take place between living people, and in this case It IS a dead person that one is marrying. But, retorts Petronius if you follow the adage 'birds of a feather flock together' you will ~ot prevent scabby women from marrying scabby men ...

GABRIEL:

PETRONIUS:

GABRIEL:

PETRONIUS:

GABRIEL:

PETRONIUS:

If it were up to me, in the interest of the State I would let them marry and then I would have them burned. Then you would be behaving like Phalaris43 and not like a Prince. Are we to say, then, that the doctor who cuts off a few fingers or burns a part of the body to prevent the whole from perishing is a Phalaris? It seems to me to be an act of pity, not one of cruelty. Would to God that It had been done when the sickness first appeared. The death of a small number would have ensured the safety of the whole world .... It would be more humane to castrate them and banish them. But what would you do to women? I would give them chastity belts.

68 The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century)

GABRIEL: That would be a way of preventing bad birds from

producing bad eggs ....

The dialogue turns to the subject of the means of contagion, with Gabriel pointing out that the disease is not transmitted by one means only; it can also be transmitted by a kiss, a touch, during conversation, or at a drinking-party. 'And we will undoubtedly find that all those who have this sickness will never be happy until they have transmitted their leprosy to many others. And then those who have been banished can flee, they can pass on their infection at night, or to those who are unaware of their condition; from the dead, on the other hand, we would have nothing to fear.'

PETRONIUS: I admit that your remedy is safer, but I don't know whether it accords with Christian charity.

GABRIEL: Come now, tell me, which are the most dangerous, honest-to-goodness robbers or the people we have

been talking about?

There follows a comparison with the plague, which Gabriel judges to be less cruel because it kills instantly. 'But what is syphilis if not an unending death?'. The conversation continues:

PETRONIUS: It will be forbidden by law to drink from a shared

cup. GABRIEL: That law will not be well received in England. PETRONIUS: And no sleeping two to a bed, except for husbands

and wives. GABRIEL: Agreed. PETRONIUS: And innkeepers can't be allowed to make travellers

sleep in soiled sheets. GABRIEL: What will you do to the Germans, who scarcely wash

them once a year? PETRONIUS: All the more work for their laundresses. Moreover,

the practice of greeting people with a kiss must be abolished, despite its antiquity ...

The moralizing is more apparent in Le triomphe de haute et puissante dame verole (1539), whose numerous illustrations in the form of a procession and whose explicit association of the pox with the follies of the world is reminiscent of The Ship of Fools. In several illustrations there are fools wearing hoods with ear-pieces pulling a handcart on which is perched the pox. Similarly, an engraving, perhaps a slightly later one, illustrating La gorre de

. The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century) 69

Rauen ~which is also depicted in Le trio h process10n against the backd f h . mp e ), shows a strange by its ramparts Dame p ropb o t e city of Rouen, surrounded

. · ox 1s emg c · d I d with a cupid. On the h arne on a s e ge adorned with ear-pieces like do~k~e', a strange coachman wearing a hood Folly, who is leading the ~;rl~i"':' _is t-andishmg a wh_ip: this is beneath whose shiny surface the m t ishcaseba decepnve world,

A . . re 1s not mg ut p t f ·

. poem m six cantos gives the histo u re action. pamtmg a series of moralistic tab! . );. hof the pox, before perhaps the s rin of v I eaux m w ic the 'well of love' - and a deadly frap~ is a ~e~~;~:n~sk~~s, but also a poisoned spring the procession is the 'baggage' ~tlj _D_raggmg at the end of bandaged and struggling on cr~ta hrow 0 . rnJured people, heavily who is in rags and tatters and i c es phredssured around Dame Pox,

. s perc e on an exhausted horse:

~::e is thl ba_ggage of this triumphal procession y ~ifookr Y ngged out (as you can see). '

ou ta e good care not to "oin it if . ¥ yoh are keen to avoid suff~ring tor~~~t~re wise, or t ose whose wit is taken away ' V' lolithsode Venus, who makes them hers

p sua y e_n up as her camp-followers ' s rea to sJCkness and denied pleasure· ,

o o not follow such a Goddess ' If you want to live a wholesome life.44

· In a second edition in 1540 . . doublet' mentions th~ perf '_an apfend1x entitled _'the buttoned pox-victim speak like ' oraknodn o the palate which makes the

b , a crac e trumpet 0 b l"k .

o oe , and also the coll f h , r ray I e a Po1tou (pug-like), 'short and s~s:sheJ lfknosA w,hich becomes 'remuseli"

Poets of the sixteenth centur w e a I g. pox. In 1512 Jean D Y axe oquent on the subject of the

' rouyn warns m a b ll d h h respecter of social status•s a d th . . ad a_ t at t e pox is no before 'starting the job': n at It is a v1sable to be cautious

Foolish sweethearts Poxy ones Bald W h l ' , pates B ate yourse ves and mend your ways ,

eware of holes, for they are dangerou~. ~hu Gentlemen, Bourgeois and Advocates 0 ~ squandefr your Crowns, Salus and Ducats

n eastmg, rohcs and making merry , Ia~e heed of the perils of love-makin~ F n . change your ways accordingly. Thr It was to haunt dubious places ;hat

e Great Pox was created.

70 The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century)

r . 'Le triomphe de haute et puissante dame PLATE 3 In Lyons in 1539 t~e mora iz1ng poemf h d . ims of the 'Queen of the Vlirole' was published. Here is the procession o wretc e v1ct

Spring of Love'. (Private collection)

Be very prudent in your love-making, And when the time for the feast comes Make sure you see clearly. you can cast care aside, take your fill of pleasure And never tire of enjoying yourself . By acquiring a reputation for the highest virtue. Avoid blotchy folk . And don't despise those who are loyal partners, For to keep a man's lance out of any old hole The Great Pox was created.

Stick to sweethearts, who are not to be lightly dismissed. But make sure you don't start the 1ob Without a candle; don't be afraid to Take a good look, both high and low, And then you may frolic to your heart's content. Be adventurous, but, As wiseacres are wont to sa~' Be learned in the school of life; For by subtle and wily Lombards The great Pox was created.

The Great Pox (Sixteenth Century)

ENVOI

Remember, Prince, that Job was virtuous, And even if he was blotchy and scabby, We beg him to preserve and comfort us. For to chastise luxurious men of the world, The Great Pox was created. 46

71

In 1525, Jean Le Maire also dedicated a poem to the pox which spares 'neither crown nor crozier':

But eventually, when the poison had matured, They developed large, scabby spots, So terribly hideous, ugly and enormous, That such deformed faces had never before been seen, ... Few of them recovered, many died, For this most cruel torment reigned Throughout the world. 47

There was also a Pox-sufferers' Paternoster,48 which was in fact somewhat irreligious, and even a sonnet advising Venus' sweethearts and other slaves of Cupid be beware of 'lecherous females',

. For fear of being damaged by some subtle poison, which often sticks more firmly than glue and pitch.

And, at the opposite pole to the glorification of the female body in the Les Blasons of the same period, we have Mathurin Regnier's Ode sur une vieille maquerelle, which addresses that

Errant spirit, idolatrous soul, Pox-ridden body covered in plaster Blindfolded by lust, Great barlequined nymph, Who broke the length of her spine On the floor of the brothel. 49

The Spaniards too gave a place of honour to the pox in their poems, and more particularly in their novels of manners. At a very early stage the pox passed from prostitutes and private soldiers to the army officers, that is to say the noblemen. The latter introduced it to the Court, which was very much given to philandering.50 The pox took such a hold there that some claimed that one could not pass for a gentleman unless one had had it. One writer even maintains that chancres are the 'exclusive property and privilege of gentlewomen and gentlemen'. 51 A case of 'laughter is the best medicine', perhaps ...

It is certainly no mere chance that one of the first novels in the Spanish language, La Lozana Andaluza (The Andalusian