The Hidden Affliction: Sexually Transmitted Infections and Infertility in History (Rochester Studies in Medical History)

A multidisciplinary group of prominent scholars investigates the historical relationship between sexually transmitted infections and infertility. Untreated gonorrhea and chlamydia cause infertility in a proportion of women and men. Unlike the much-feared venereal disease of syphilis--"the pox"--gonorrhea and chlamydia are often symptomless, leaving victims unaware of the threat to their fertility. Science did not unmask the causal microorganisms until the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their effects on fertility in human history remain mysterious. This is the first volume to address the subject across over two thousand years of human history. Following a synoptic editorial introduction, part 1 explores the enigmas of evidence from ancient and early modern medical sources. Part 2 addresses fundamental questions about when exactly these diseases first became human afflictions, with new contributions from bioarcheology, genomics, and the history of medicine, producing surprising new insights. Part 3 presents studies of infertility and its sociocultural consequences in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Africa, Oceania, and Australia. Part 4 examines the quite different ways the infertility threat from STIs was perceived--by scientists, the public, and government--in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, France, and Britain, concluding with a pioneering empirical estimate of the infertility impact in Britain. Simon Szreter is Professor of History and Public Policy, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. Multidisciplinary collection of essays on the relationship of infertility and the'historic'STIs--gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis--producing surprising new insights in studies from across the globe and spanning millennia.A multidisciplinary group of prominent scholars investigates the historical relationship between sexually transmitted infections and infertility. Untreated gonorrhea and chlamydia cause infertility in a proportion of women and men. Unlike the much-feared venereal disease of syphilis--'the pox'--gonorrhea and chlamydia are often symptomless, leaving victims unaware of the threat to their fertility. Science did not unmask the causal microorganisms until thelate nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their effects on fertility in human history remain mysterious. This is the first volume to address the subject across more than two thousand years of human history. Following asynoptic editorial introduction, part 1 explores the enigmas of evidence from ancient and early modern medical sources. Part 2 addresses fundamental questions about when exactly these diseases first became human afflictions, withnew contributions from bioarcheology, genomics, and the history of medicine, producing surprising new insights. Part 3 presents studies of infertility and its sociocultural consequences in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Africa, Oceania, and Australia. Part 4 examines the quite different ways the infertility threat from STIs was perceived--by scientists, the public, and government--in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, France, and Britain, concluding with a pioneering empirical estimate of the infertility impact in Britain. Simon Szreter is Professor of History and Public Policy, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. A multidisciplinary group of prominent scholars investigates the historical relationship between sexually transmitted infections and infertility. Untreated gonorrhea and chlamydia cause infertility in a proportion of women and men. Unlike the much-feared venereal disease of syphilis--"the pox"--gonorrhea and chlamydia are often symptomless, leaving victims unaware of the threat to their fertility. Science did not unmask the causal microorganisms until thelate nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their effects on fertility in human history remain mysterious. This is the first volume to address the subject across more than two thousand years of human history.

Following asynoptic editorial introduction, part 1 explores the enigmas of evidence from ancient and early modern medical sources. Part 2 addresses fundamental questions about when exactly these diseases first became human afflictions, withnew contributions from bioarcheology, genomics, and the history of medicine, producing surprising new insights. Part 3 presents studies of infertility and its sociocultural consequences in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Africa, Oceania, and Australia. Part 4 examines the quite different ways the infertility threat from STIs was perceived--by scientists, the public, and government--in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, France, and Britain, concluding with a pioneering empirical estimate of the infertility impact in Britain.

Simon Szreter is Professor of History and Public Policy, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. "A multidisciplinary group of prominent scholars explores the historical relationship between sexually transmitted infections and infertility. Untreated gonorrhea and chlamydia cause infertility in a proportion of women and men. Unlike the much-feared venereal disease of syphilis--"the pox"--gonorrhea and chlamydia are often symptomless, leaving victims unaware of the threat to their fertility. Science did not unmask the causal microorganisms until the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their effects on fertility in human history remain mysterious. This is the first volume to address the subject across over 2,000 years of human history. Following a synoptic editorial introduction, Part 1 explores the enigmas of evidence from ancient and early modern medical sources. Part 2 addresses fundamental questions about when exactly these diseases first became human afflictions, with new contributions from bioarcheology, genomics, and the history of medicine, producing surprising new insights. Part 3 presents studies of infertility and its sociocultural consequences in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Africa, Oceania, and Australia. Part 4 examines the quite different ways the infertility threat from STIs was perceived--by scientists, the public, and government--in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, France, and Britain, concluding with a pioneering empirical estimate of the infertility impact in Britain. Simon Szreter is Professor of History and Public Policy, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge"-- Provided by publisher Frontcover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part One. The Hidden Pitfalls in the Early Documentary Record 1 (The Wrong Kind of ) Gonorrhea in Antiquity 2 “Poxt and Clapt Together”: Sexual Misbehavior in Early Modern Cases of Venereal Disease Part Two. The Biomedical Sciences and the History of the STI Microorganisms 3 Bioarchaeological Contributions to Understanding the History of Treponemal Disease 4 A Long-Standing Evolutionary History between Chlamydia trachomatis and Humans: Visible Ocular and Invisible Genital Variants 5 Chlamydia: A Disease without a History Part Three. Population Decline in the Global South 6 Population Decline in Island Melanesia: Aphrodisian Cultural Practices, Sexually Transmitted Infections, and Low Fertility 7 Community Infertility in Papua New Guinea: Uncovering the Role of Gonorrhea 8 Fertility, STIs, and Sexual Behavior in Early and Mid-Twentieth- Century East Africa 9 “A Wise Provision of Nature for the Prevention of Too Many Children”: Evidence from the Australian Colonies Part Four. Infertility and the Specter of Venereal Diseases in Modern Europe 10 “The Archenemy of Fertility”: Gonorrhea and Infertility, Germany 1870–1935 11 Fecundity in a World of Scourges: Venereal Diseases, Criminal Abortion, and Acquired Infertility in France, circa 1880–1950 12 Revealing the Hidden Affliction: How Much Infertility Was Due to Venereal Disease in England and Wales on the Eve of the Great War? List of Contributors Index A multidisciplinary group of prominent scholars investigates the historical relationship between sexually transmitted infections and infertility. Untreated gonorrhea and chlamydia cause infertility in a proportion of women and men. Unlike the much-feared venereal disease of syphilis--"the pox"--gonorrhea and chlamydia are often symptomless, leaving victims unaware of the threat to their fertility. Science did not unmask the causal microorganisms until the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their effects on fertility in human history remain mysterious. This is the first volume to address the subject across more than two thousand years of human history. Following a synoptic editorial introduction, part 1 explores the enigmas of evidence from ancient and early modern medical sources. Part 2 addresses fundamental questions about when exactly these diseases first became human afflictions, with new contributions from bioarcheology, genomics, and the history of medicine, producing surprising new insights. Part 3 presents studies of infertility and its sociocultural consequences in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Africa, Oceania, and Australia. Part 4 examines the quite different ways the infertility threat from STIs was perceived--by scientists, the public, and government--in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany, France, and Britain, concluding with a pioneering empirical estimate of the infertility impact in Britain.

By the turn of the twentieth century the British nation's declining birthrate was increasingly the subject of anxious public and scientific debate, as the Registrar General's annual reports continued to confirm a downward national trend, which had in fact commenced from the late 1870s.