The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 (of 2): Being a History of Venereal Disease in Classical Antiquity

In Short

Dr. Julius Rosenbaum’s The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 is a nineteenth-century historical and medical survey tracing venereal diseases, sexual pathologies, and genital afflictions across classical Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Syrian antiquity. Synthesizing classical literature, historical chronicles, and ancient medical treatises by figures like Hippocrates and Galen, the text explores how climate, hygiene, cultural customs, and medical limitations shaped ancient perceptions of sexually transmitted illnesses. It has endured as an extraordinarily detailed, primary-source-driven chronicle of how ancient civilizations conceptualized bodily contagion, sexual deviance, and pathology long before modern germ theory.

The Story

The intellectual arc of this volume opens with an investigation into specific sexual practices and their corresponding physical pathologies as recorded in ancient texts. Rosenbaum examines how non-coital practices, including fellation and cunnilingus, were linked in the ancient mind to severe physical afflictions of the mouth, throat, and face. He explores classical references to conditions like Morbus Phoeniceus, Mentagra (tetter of the chin), and Morbus Campanus, tracing how ancient writers associated these hideous facial eruptions, bone callosities, and throat ulcers with specific licentious behaviors or divine retribution from deities such as the Syrian goddess.

From these localized pathologies, the text broadens its scope to evaluate environmental and physiological influences. Rosenbaum investigates how regional climate, solar heat, and the activity of the cutaneous glands influenced the manifestation of genital and skin diseases across Egypt, Asia, and the Mediterranean. He analyzes major historical epidemics, re-evaluating Hippocratic observations on gangrenous genital ulcers and Thucydides’ account of the Plague of Athens, where severe affliction of the extremities and sexual organs forced desperate patients to undergo amputation.

The narrative then transitions into an examination of cultural practices that either exacerbated or checked the spread of disease. Rosenbaum surveys ancient habits of personal cleanliness, depilation, circumcision, and public bathing. He details how Roman public baths, originally designed for hygiene, gradually transformed into venues for unregulated vice, thereby facilitating the transmission of contagious conditions among both men and women.

Finally, the work culminates in a systematic review of ancient medical practice and its relationship to genital diseases. Rosenbaum addresses the profound obstacles ancient physicians faced, including widespread patient shame, self-treatment, and outright deception. He documents how classical authorities like Galen, Celsus, Paulus Aegineta, and Alexander of Tralles categorized conditions like gonorrhoea, buboes, and genital exanthemata. The text outlines their therapeutic interventions, ranging from blood-letting, leeches, and herbal poultices of hemlock or nightshade, to surgical incisions, cauterization, and the removal of gangrenous tissue, concluding with an analysis of how ancient medical terminology often obscured or misidentified the underlying venereal causes of these ailments.

How It Unfolds

Pathologies of Licentious Practice The investigation opens by linking specific non-coital sexual acts to severe facial, oral, and cutaneous afflictions mentioned in classical satire and history. Rosenbaum analyzes conditions such as Mentagra and Morbus Campanus, arguing that ancient observers recognized these disfiguring eruptions and throat ulcers as direct physical consequences of unnatural vice.

Climatic and Environmental Factors The focus shifts to how geography, weather, and bodily secretions affected the expression of disease in Asia, Egypt, and southern Europe. Rosenbaum explains that ancient physicians viewed the intense activity of the skin and cutaneous glands in warmer climates as a primary mechanism for either expelling or aggravating internal morbid humors.

Epidemics and Historical Afflictions The text re-examines historical plague accounts through a clinical lens, focusing on Hippocratic records of gangrenous genital ulcers and the Plague of Athens. Rosenbaum illustrates how systemic epidemic conditions combined with localized infections to cause severe tissue destruction, often requiring surgical amputation of the extremities and genitals.

Hygiene and the Transformation of Public Baths Analyzing preventive practices, the narrative explores the dual role of Roman and Greek bathing culture, depilation, and circumcision. While intended to promote cleanliness, public baths eventually evolved into centers of promiscuity, ultimately accelerating the spread of venereal afflictions.

Medical Diagnosis and Patient Concealment The final section evaluates the struggle of ancient physicians to observe, categorize, and treat genital diseases due to patient secrecy and shame. Rosenbaum details the diagnostic methods, surgical techniques, and pharmacopeia of classical doctors like Galen and Paulus Aegineta as they attempted to treat gonorrhoea, buboes, and severe ulcers without modern pathological tools.

The People

Galen of Pergamon The paramount Roman-era physician who seeks to understand and treat complex bodily afflictions through humorology and empirical observation. Hindered by patient embarrassment and the limitations of ancient pathology, he prescribes bleeding, cauterization, and specialized poultices, while documenting severe cases of genital ulcers and involuntary discharges.

Hippocrates of Cos The foundational Greek medical authority whose historical case notes provide crucial evidence of ancient genital ulcers and gangrenous complications. His clinical observations allow Rosenbaum to establish that severe genital infections were recognized and recorded in early Mediterranean antiquity.

Paulus Aegineta and Alexander of Tralles Late classical medical writers who attempt to systematically categorize and treat conditions like gonorrhoea and inflammatory genital disorders. They struggle against the prevailing medical confusions of their day, advocating regimens ranging from cooling plant extracts like nightshade and mallows to strict lifestyle modifications.

Pliny the Younger and Classical Satirists (Martial, Catullus, Petronius) Non-medical Roman observers whose letters, epigrams, and satires provide essential historical evidence of public moral decay, disfiguring facial eruptions, and secret bodily afflictions that contemporary physicians frequently overlooked or failed to record.

In Its Own Voice

"Maritus ex diutino morbo circa velanda corporis ulceribus putrescebat: uxor, ut inspiceret, exegit: neque enim quemquam fidelius indicaturam, possetne sanari." Pliny the Younger describes a tragic case where a Roman wife demanded to inspect her husband's long-standing, putrefying genital ulcers before choosing to join him in ending their lives.

"Gonorrhœa without erection of the penis, that is to say gonorrhœa proper, exhibits a persistent, involuntary discharge of the seed, has some analogy with incontinentia urinae, and usually depends like the latter on weakness or failure in the retentive power of the spermatic vessels." Rosenbaum summarizes the classical medical understanding of seminal fluxes and inflammatory discharges as articulated by ancient physicians.

"In the preceding Sections we have become acquainted with the various influences capable of favouring or counteracting the rise of diseases consequent upon the use or misuse of the genitals in Antiquity." The author defines the overarching scope of his historical synthesis as he transitions into evaluating the formal medical responses of classical doctors.

What It's Really About

At its core, the book investigates the historical intersection of human sexual behavior, medical epidemiology, and societal perception in the classical world. Rosenbaum seeks to prove that venereal diseases were not modern developments, but existed throughout antiquity under various names and diagnostic misclassifications. The text examines how ancient moral frameworks attributed bodily decay to divine vengeance or moral failure, while simultaneously documenting how environmental factors like climate, diet, and public hygiene influenced physical health. By contrasting literary satire against formal medical texts, the work questions why ancient physicians often failed to recognize sexually transmitted infections as distinct contagious entities, attributing them instead to general humoral imbalances, extreme continent behavior, or localized skin disorders.

Why Read It Today

This volume appeals to historians of medicine, classicists, and readers fascinated by the social history of antiquity. Reading Rosenbaum feels like entering an intensely scholarly, nineteenth-century archive: the prose is formal, meticulous, and heavily laden with untranslated Latin and Greek excerpts, exhaustive footnotes, and dense philological debates. It offers an unvarnished look at how ancient cultures coped with physical suffering, social stigma, and the limits of medical knowledge.

The primary challenge for modern readers lies in its formidable academic style. Rosenbaum expects familiarity with classical authors, and the text frequently delves into complex linguistic etymologies, ancient anatomical theories, and archaic medical terminology. Furthermore, nineteenth-century translations retain period attitudes and Victorian euphemisms when discussing sexual practices. Despite these hurdles, what remains with the reader is a profound appreciation for the thoroughness of classical scholarship and a vivid, unflinching portrait of human vulnerability, disease, and medical ambition across the ancient Mediterranean world.