Itch, Clap, Pox: Venereal Disease in the Eighteenth-Century Imagination

280 Pages·2019·8.09 MB·English

by  Noelle D Gallagher

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Itch, Clap, Pox
v e n e r e a l d i s e a s e i n
t h e e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y
i m a g i n at i o n
Noelle Gallagher
New Haven & London
Published with assistance from the Louis Stern Memorial Fund, and from the
Annie Burr Lewis Fund.
Copyright © 2018 by Yale University.
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Contents
Acknowledgments, ix
Introduction, 1
1 Officers and Gentlemen, 14
2 The Pox and Prostitution, 62
3 Foreigners, 114
4 A Chapter of Noses, 159
Conclusion, 213
Notes, 217
Index, 259
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Acknowledgments
This book could not have been written without the support and guidance
of many colleagues and friends. Hal Gladfelder and Jeff Geiger read puni-
tively large sections of the manuscript and offered generous and insightful
advice; I am especially grateful for Hal’s superior knowledge of the eighteenth
century and careful scholarly eye. Many others also offered commentary, sug-
gestions, or guidance: in particular, I would like to thank Samuel Cohn,
Celina Fox, Sasha Handley, Allan Ingram, Jonathan Lamb, Susan Lanser,
Clark Lawlor, Ursula Mulcahy, Tim Parkin, Jackie Pearson, Steven Pincus,
David E. Shuttleton, Robin Simon, Daniel Szechi, Siobhan Talbott, Valerie
Traub, Leigh Wetherall- Dickson, and Michael Worboys.
I am grateful to the Wellcome Trust, Yale University, and the University of
Manchester for providing funding to complete the research for this mono-
graph. I would also like to thank the staff at the John Rylands Library
Deansgate, the Glasgow University Library Syphilis Collection, the Wellcome
Library, the British Museum, and the Lewis Walpole Library. Of the many
knowledgeable archivists, librarians, and curators who assisted me, Cindy
Roman, Susan Walker, Kristen McDonald, and Sonny Maley deserve particu-
lar thanks for their generosity and expertise. I am also grateful to the readers
for Yale University Press and to the editorial staff there, especially Laura
Davulis, Jaya Chatterjee, Phillip King, and Kip Keller.
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