Syphilis

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2023

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From Acts of Parliament to unethical clinical studies to legendary symphonies (possibly) - syphilis has stained many different areas of history.

To find out what this disease is, what it does to the body and how treatments of it and the people who have it have changed, Kate spoke to Cat Irving, Human Remains Conservator for Surgeons’ Hall in Edinburgh.

*WARNING there are adult words and discussions of illness and death in this episode*

Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Mixed Thomas Ntinas.

Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, my lovely blood twixters, it's me Kate Lister. I am here with your Ferdous warning.
0:05.5	I know it normally makes silly Ferdous warning, but this is actually quite a serious Ferdous warning
0:10.0	because we are talking about syphilis. It's fascinating, but it is absolutely hideous.
0:14.8	So you just might not want to listen to that and who can blame you.
0:18.6	If that's the case, get out while you still can.
0:30.0	It's been blamed at various points in history on the French, the Italians, the Dutch,
0:34.4	the Turks, Christians, Columbus and Cupid. But wherever it did come from, syphilis has left a
0:42.2	destructive trail through our history. Today but twix the sheets, we are wrapping up and we're going
0:49.2	to find out some more.
1:00.0	Hello and welcome back to the twix the sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society, with
1:27.0	me Kate Lister. By the end of 2021, diagnosis of infectious syphilis had already returned to
1:34.8	pre-pandemic levels, with seven and a half thousand people testing positive that year alone.
1:41.5	But the disease is not new, oh no no far from it. It has been estimated in the 18th century,
1:48.1	one in five of the population of London had syphilis. And countless famous people have now been
1:54.3	retrospectively and probably quite inaccurately diagnosed with it at various points in history.
1:59.2	Henry VIII, Beethoven, Al Capone, although he did actually have syphilis. That is on his medical records.
2:06.0	But today I'm speaking to Kat Irving about syphilis, what it does to the body, how it has been treated
2:12.0	and how people with it have been perceived. Today at the twix the sheets, we are going to find out more.
2:19.1	Hello to Kat Irving. Hello, thank you for joining me
2:27.9	between the sheets today. Hello, it's a pleasure to be here.
2:31.9	I am thrilled to be talking to you because you are the human remains conservator for the surgeon's
2:38.0	hall. Yes, I am, which it's a fairly rock and roll job type, I feel. That is epic.
	...

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