The Plague of Lust, Vol. 2 (of 2)

This volume continues a meticulous 19th-century scholarly investigation into the history of venereal disease in the ancient world, examining how classical civilizations understood, treated, and stigmatized sexual illness. Rosenbaum traces the medical representations of these diseases through Greek and Roman sources, while also exploring the cultural frameworks that shaped perception: the cult of Venus, phallic worship practices, the ubiquitous presence of brothels, and the spectrum of sexual behaviors that antiquity tolerated or condemned. The work stands as a remarkable time capsule of Victorian academic methodology applied to topics most scholars of the era preferred to leave untouched. What emerges is not merely a medical history but a portrait of how ancient societies organized their understanding of desire, contagion, and moral judgment into coherent systems. For readers interested in the history of medicine, classical sexuality, or the evolution of social attitudes toward sexual health, this text offers an invaluable window into a world both alien and strangely familiar.