No such thing as
a secret affair in Georgian England … the ‘pox’ will always give you away

If you had taken a walk in London in the early 1700s, it would have been hard not to stare. Everywhere you see men and women, young and old, rich and poor, limping and staggering with strange unsteady gaits. Some had oozing wounds, while others, even more gruesome, appeared to have a hole where their noses used to be. These unfortunate souls all suffered from ‘smallpox’, also known as venereal disease.

American professor Olivia Weisser explains how common smallpox was 300 years ago in this chilling yet fascinating book. In 1660, II. Following Charles’ Restoration, the old Puritan prohibitions were overthrown. Sex was now being sold everywhere you looked.

Although today we divide venereal infections into gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia, in Georgian England they were all ‘hidden diseases’. There was nothing secret about this, however, because the symptoms were embarrassingly easy to spot: open wounds, lameness, loose teeth and oozy discharge. Worse, there was absolutely no cure.

Of course, that didn’t stop people from trying. Venereal diseases were a paradise for charlatans, and the list of patented medicines grew longer by the day. One of the solutions was banana juice, rose water and the ‘milk of the woman’ who had recently given birth to a daughter.

Other treatment attempts were more harsh. ‘Ugly persons’ were often given mercury, a poison that caused them to sweat and salivate in the hope that the infection would somehow go away. That the process was so unpleasant was the point: Mercury was designed not just as a cure, but also as painful punishment.

The punishment was significant because smallpox was indelibly associated with unauthorized sex. Going to the doctor with open wounds or terrible pain in your arms and legs was tantamount to admitting that you were with someone you really shouldn’t have been. The cruelest of all cases was when a husband caught the disease from a street wanderer and thus inflicted a painful death sentence on his unsuspecting wife.

Terrible Pox is available now

Lady Frances Hanbury Williams was just one of the unfortunate victims of such a spoiled husband. After suffering months of sores and swelling, Lady Frances finally realized the cause of her ill health and immediately filed for divorce on the grounds of her husband’s ‘notorious Crime’.

This was unheard of in the 1740s. With much less money and social status, most women had to endure poor health and a husband who continued to play dumb about what he was doing.

All you could really do in these miserable conditions was buy trendy face patches to cover the obvious scars and try to style it. When death came, which it would surely and painfully do, you were past really caring.