Study Reveals Just How Bad Syphilis Got in London in The Late 18th Century
As many as one in five Londoners had syphilis by their mid-30s during the late 18th century, according to a detailed new study on the sexually transmitted infection (STI) and its spread in the capital of the United Kingdom.
Researchers used data from hospital admissions and workhouse infirmaries to reach their figures, making allowances for duplicate records, private treatments, and the possibility of syphilis numbers getting mixed in with other diseases like gonorrhea or chlamydia.
The findings show a much higher incidence in London than elsewhere in the country at the time – other studies show 'the pox' was half as prevalent in the city of Chester, and up to 25 times less common in rural parts of England and Wales during the late 1700s.
"It isn't very surprising that London's sexual culture differed from that of rural Britain in this period," says historian Simon Szreter, from the University of Cambridge in the UK. "But now it's pretty clear that London was in a completely different league to even sizeable provincial cities like Chester."
"The city had an astonishingly high incidence of STIs at that time. It no longer seems unreasonable to suggest that a majority of those living in London while young adults in this period contracted an STI at some point in their lives."........MUCH MORE
And via the above, Economic History Review, July 1, 2020:
The pox in Boswell's London: an estimate of the extent of syphilis infection in the metropolis in the 1770s†
