Shortly after Christopher Columbus and his sailors returned from their voyage to the New World, a horrifying new disease began to make its way around the Old. The "pox," as it was often called, erupted with dramatic severity. — Peter Lewis Allen Copy Share Image
Medical research in the twentieth century mostly takes place in the lab; in the Renaissance, though, researchers went first and foremost to the library… — Peter Lewis Allen Copy Share Image
Was this an old disease, and, if so, which one? If it was new, what did that say about the state of medical knowledge?… — Peter Lewis Allen Copy Share Image
Even more than this, however, the sick - like lepers - were often reviled because people believed that they had brought their torments upon… — Peter Lewis Allen Copy Share Image
The idea of infection began to be taken far more seriously than it ever had before. Hospitals transformed themselves in response to the new… — Peter Lewis Allen Copy Share Image
Perhaps more than any other disease before or since, syphilis in early modern Europe provoked the kind of widespread moral panic that AIDS revived… — Peter Lewis Allen Copy Share Image
Shortly after Christopher Columbus and his sailors returned from their voyage to the New World, a horrifying new disease began to make its way… — Peter Lewis Allen Copy Share Image
