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  • In pictures

Sex and syphilis

Before antibiotics, syphilis unleashed centuries of misery, countered by desperate but largely useless remedies. With the spread of syphilis on the rise, it’s worth remembering what our forebears suffered.

  • In pictures

Faces from the archives

Meet some of the lesser-known but no less extraordinary figures in the history of medicine, through a series of original portraits.

  • Article

The prostitute whose pox inspired feminists

Fitzrovia, 1875. A woman recorded only as A.G. enters hospital and is diagnosed with syphilis.

  • Article

Public health campaigns and the ‘threat’ of disability

By continuing to represent disability as the feared outcome of disease, public health campaigns help to perpetuate prejudice against disabled people.

All stories (12)

Images

  • Early syphilis (secondary stage)
  • Early syphilis (secondary stage)
  • Tongue with furrows of tertiary syphilis
  • Tongue with furrows of tertiary syphilis
  • Syphilis
  • Syphilis: ten people, one of whom is diagnosed as having syphilis. Colour lithograph after D. Fellnagel, 1940.
  • Atlas of syphilis / by Leo v. Zumbusch.
  • Atlas of syphilis / by Leo v. Zumbusch.
  • Atlas of syphilis / by Leo v. Zumbusch.
  • Atlas of syphilis / by Leo v. Zumbusch.
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