Pox and morbus Gallicus

Use in the book

The distinction between the two named poxes matters to Burton's account of medical knowledge. He includes both smallpox and the French disease among conditions he says were unknown to Galen and Hippocrates. That is his claim about the limits of ancient knowledge and the multiplication of diseases, not a demonstrated date of their first existence. In the earlier fantasy of a universal reformer, curing the Neapolitan disease sits beside settling controversies, disciplining desire and imposing religious unity. A disease-name can thus mark a concrete target of hoped-for cure while participating in a much wider, coercive dream of reform.

Within melancholy's causal scheme, pox can precede the present disorder. The synopsis puts it among “precedent diseases”; the fuller discussion cites Botaldus for “the French pox” as a cause. Burton's “degenerate into this” means that the other diseases develop or change into melancholy in the account he is reporting. It does not mean that a patient becomes morally degenerate. Similarly, the inherited-disease catalogue includes pox alongside leprosy, stone, gout and epilepsy, but Burton is reporting Mercado's theory of familial transmission, not establishing the identity or genetic mechanism of each item by modern criteria.

The nursing discussion puts bodily disease into a particularly revealing sequence. Animal anecdotes are first used to argue that milk transmits the feeder's nature; Favorinus is then invoked for the transmission of a nurse's bodily shape, character and diseases. The examples between that claim and the return to “bodily sickness” concern cruelty and drunkenness. When Burton says children catch the pox from a nurse, he adds “if we may believe Physicians” and cites a work on venereal disease. The surrounding argument recommends mothers nursing their own children and disparages hired nurses. Its conflation of character, constitution, disease and social status must remain visible: the passage is historical testimony to that argument, not a judgement about wet nurses or a present-day explanation of transmission.

A reported practice at Bantam gives the name a different task. Burton describes sufferers exposing themselves to the sun to dry their sores, within an account of excessive heat and the discomfort of English traders. His marginal Latin identifies the disease as the French disease. The purpose attributed to the sufferers explains “bleaching”; it is not proof of therapeutic effectiveness. Elsewhere pox appears among the diseases attributed to wealth or lust, and in a consolatory list of conditions that make company difficult. That last list combines communicability, frightening appearance and offensiveness to observers; its contrast with melancholy as “not catching” does not turn every listed condition into a contagious disease.

The love-remedy section exploits the stigma rather than presenting cases. Burton reports advice to tell a lover that the beloved has the pox, hereditary disorders or other discrediting infirmities. The controlling instruction is to say these things: the diseases are allegations designed to produce aversion. Aretino's quoted Lucretia then supplies the violently moralised “pocky quean.” By contrast, the later “small pox” belongs to a list of illnesses, injuries and changes that can destroy admired beauty. Both passages unsettle erotic idealisation, but one uses venereal insult and the other the vulnerability of appearance. Keeping them distinct preserves both the lexical difference and the different acts performed by the words.

Related entries

Contagion and infection explains “catching” and the differences between transmission and social avoidance. Leprosy follows another disease-name through inheritance, nursing and stigma. Custom and education owns the wider nursing argument; Venery explains the sexual vocabulary. Disease and sickness and Cause distinguish a named disorder from its place in a causal account.

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraph 31The Neapolitan disease among the universal reformer’s imagined cures.
2. A Section 2. Causes of Melancholy Are Either: · paragraph 29Pox as a precedent disease in the causal synopsis.
3. Subsection 2. The Definition, Number and Classification of Diseases · paragraph 5Smallpox distinguished from the French disease in the catalogue of supposedly newer illnesses.
4. Subsection 6. Parents as a Cause Through Inheritance · paragraph 44Pox in a reported catalogue of hereditary diseases.
5. Subsection 5 Bad Air as a Cause of Melancholy · paragraph 35Sufferers at Bantam said to expose their sores to the sun.
6. Member 4 Subsection 1 Non-Necessary, Remote, External, Adventitious or Accidental Causes: First, the Nurse · paragraph 27Context: animal nursing anecdotes used to argue transmission of nature.
7. Member 4 Subsection 1 Non-Necessary, Remote, External, Adventitious or Accidental Causes: First, the Nurse · paragraph 28Pox among diseases said to be imprinted through milk.
8. Member 4 Subsection 1 Non-Necessary, Remote, External, Adventitious or Accidental Causes: First, the Nurse · paragraph 29Context: cruelty attributed to a nurse.
9. Member 4 Subsection 1 Non-Necessary, Remote, External, Adventitious or Accidental Causes: First, the Nurse · paragraph 30Context: drunkenness and mental qualities attributed to nursing.
10. Member 4 Subsection 1 Non-Necessary, Remote, External, Adventitious or Accidental Causes: First, the Nurse · paragraph 31The qualified claim that children catch pox from a nurse, with a venereal-disease citation.
11. Member 4 Subsection 1 Non-Necessary, Remote, External, Adventitious or Accidental Causes: First, the Nurse · paragraph 32Context: the argument’s conclusion against sending children to hired nurses.
12. Member 5 Subsection 1 Immediate, Internal, Antecedent and Proximate Causes, and How the Body Acts Upon the Mind · paragraph 57French pox reported as a cause of melancholy.
13. Member 3 Against Poverty and Want and Other Such Adversities · paragraph 37Pox in the moralised catalogue of affluence’s diseases.
14. Member 8 Against Melancholy Itself · paragraph 26Pox among disorders that restrict or disturb company.
15. Subsection 2 How Love Tyrannizes Over Human Beings. Love, or Heroical Melancholy: Its Definition and the Part Affected · paragraph 23Pox among the alleged bodily consequences of lust.
16. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul Means, Contrary Passions and Ingenious Devices; Introduce Another Love and Disparage the Former · paragraph 51The instruction to allege pox in order to repel a lover.
17. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul Means, Contrary Passions and Ingenious Devices; Introduce Another Love and Disparage the Former · paragraph 52Context: the catalogue continues as accusations rather than case histories.
18. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraph 36Personified pox and the abusive adjective in quoted literary speech.
19. By Counsel and Persuasion, the Foulness of the Deed, the Faults of Men and Women, the Miseries of Marriage, the Consequences of Lust, and So Forth · paragraph 42Smallpox among the threats to bodily beauty.

In this edition

The modern column preserves “pox” where the original leaves the name unqualified, joins “small pox” into “smallpox,” and translates the Latin geographical labels as “French disease” and “Neapolitan disease.” The editor's identification with syphilis is explanatory apparatus: “syphilis” is an editorial lookup expression here, not a replacement claimed to be printed in Burton's body text. The same distinction applies to the expanded title “On Venereal Disease” for the abbreviated “de lue vener.”

The edition also makes the action of the defamation passage clearer with “say that,” and renders “pocky” as “pox-ridden.” Those choices help identify assertion level and adjective meaning without endorsing the slur. The attribution of the nursing anecdote and the precise Botaldus reference remain matters for source identification; this article does not silently repair them or claim that their documentary origins have been settled.

Small pox

Smallpox, distinguished here from the French disease.

Original wording: “Scorbutum, Small pox, Plica, Sweating sickness, Morbus Gallicus”

Modern wording: “scurvy, smallpox, plica, sweating sickness, the French disease”

The list names two different pox-related diseases. The later beauty passage uses smallpox as a possible cause of disfigurement, not as a venereal accusation.

Editorial access forms: smallpox; small pox. These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

Further checked attestations: the passage: “A little sickness, a Feaver, small pox”.

Morbus Gallicus

The French disease, identified in the editorial note as syphilis in this historical usage.

Original wording: “Morbus Gallicus”

Modern wording: “the French disease”

The Latin is a geographical disease-name within Burton’s account of conditions allegedly unknown to the ancient authorities. The name does not establish geographical origin.

Editorial access forms: French disease; syphilis (editorial identification). These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

morbus Neapolitanus

The Neapolitan disease, another historical name identified by the editor with syphilis.

Original wording: “morbus Neapolitanus”

Modern wording: “the Neapolitan disease”

The disease is one object of the fantasy reformer’s comprehensive cure. The Latin geographical designation is retained as a distinct printed form, not counted as an additional disease beside the French pox.

Editorial access forms: Neapolitan disease. These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

French pox

The venereal disease offered by a cited physician as a cause of melancholy.

Original wording: “the French pox for a cause”

Modern wording: “gives the French pox”

Botaldus is the named authority. The surrounding claim that diseases “degenerate into” melancholy describes a supposed development, not moral deterioration.

Editorial access forms: great pox (editorial comparison). These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

pox

The venereal disease in a reported claim about transmission from a nurse.

Original wording: “children catch the pox from a bad Nurse”

Modern wording: “children often catch the pox from a bad nurse”

The phrase is governed by “if we may believe Physicians.” Its bibliographical setting and the editor’s note identify the venereal sense, while the wider argument mingles nursing, character and bodily illness.

Editorial access forms: Pox; unqualified pox. These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

Related action, not a synonym of pox: “lie commonly bleaching in the Sun, to dry up their sores” describes sufferers’ exposure to sunlight. An accompanying note explains the sun exposure and stated drying purpose; neither the wording nor this record establishes efficacy. Editorial lookup: bleaching [sun exposure].

de lue vener.

An abbreviated Latin book-title citation concerning venereal disease.

Original wording: “Botaldus cap. 61. de lue vener.”

Modern wording: “Botallo, chapter 61 of On Venereal Disease”

The modern edition expands and translates the abbreviated title. This is a bibliographical phrase, not a separate diagnosis of the infant, and no particular edition of the cited work is established here.

Editorial access forms: On Venereal Disease; lues venerea (editorial expansion). These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

pocky

Afflicted with pox; here a disease adjective used abusively.

Original wording: “a pocky quean”

Modern wording: “a pox-ridden whore”

The adjective occurs in speech attributed to Aretino’s Lucretia. It contributes to sexual and moral invective rather than supplying independent clinical evidence. Quean is the accompanying abusive noun, not part of the disease adjective’s meaning.

Editorial access forms: pocky quean; pox-ridden. These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.

more envious then the pox

A personifying comparison that makes the disease an image of envy.

Original wording: “she is more envious then the pox”

Modern wording: “she is more envious than the pox”

The quoted speaker assigns a moral passion to illness, alongside “malicious as melancholy.” Envious is therefore rhetorical personification, not a symptom in a medical description.

Editorial access forms: envious pox. These are lookup aids, not additional claims of printed attestation.