A Brief History
On January 31, 1747, the London Lock Hospital opened as the first clinic specifically for the treatment of venereal diseases!
Digging Deeper
Digging deeper, we find many diseases today are identified as “venereal” or sexually transmitted by a variety of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa.
Back in the days when science had not yet discovered the microscopic causes of disease, Europeans thought mainly of syphilis when addressing the subject of venereal disease. Although it is not proven beyond a doubt, many scientists think that syphilis was unknown in Europe until infected sailors among the crews of Christopher Columbus’s ships returned from their first voyage to the New World, having contracted the disease after having sex with Native Americans. The first documented widespread outbreak of syphilis was in Italy around 1494 or 1495 and was spread to France by soldiers returning from battle in Italy. The rest, as historians say, is history!
Syphilis became a major health concern in Europe, including Britain, and in the early years, was a much more deadly disease than it is today. Europeans had no immunity built up, and deaths from syphilis were common and horrible, with victims exhibiting sores over their entire body, arthritic-like symptoms and madness before death.
It soon became apparent that prostitution was responsible for much of the spread of the disease, and prostitutes became reviled by many, with laws eventually passed around the world forbidding “the oldest profession.” For example, in 1546, King Henry VIII of England and Ireland (r. 1509-1547) issued a royal proclamation outlawing brothels in England and ending toleration of prostitutes. Nevertheless, both prostitutes and venereal disease continued to be present in England in the 17th and 18th centuries.
And so just a few years before a new ban on brothel-keeping was included in Britain’s Disorderly Houses Act of 1751, the London Lock Hospital was founded as a voluntary hospital for venereal diseases. The Lock Hospital eventually evolved into a women’s obstetrics and gynecological clinic before closing in 1952. Prior to the development of Salvarsan in 1910 and the introduction of penicillin in 1943 as treatments for venereal disease, there were no real cures, so until the 20th century, only the symptoms could be addressed.
From the 1490s through the present, the specter of syphilis has haunted humanity to such an extent that it has even entered popular culture. An interesting song known as “The Lock Hospital Song” is about the victims of syphilis.
A well known variant is “St. James Hospital,” a tune Americans are familiar with as “The Streets of Laredo!”
Question for students (and subscribers): Should prostitution be legal or illegal and why? Also, do you have a favorite version of “The Streets of Laredo”? If so, please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Williams, D.I. The London Lock: A Charitable Hospital for Venereal Disease, 1746-1952. Royal Society of Medicine Press Ltd, 1995.
The featured image in this article, an old print of the London Lock Hospital, Hyde Park Corner, 1831, is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 70 years or less. This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1924. See this page for further explanation.
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<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="1109 http://www.crackedhistory.com/?p=1109">87 Comments
It is very interesting how diseases can spread so quickly, especially during this period in history!
So in other words, the Spanish couldn’t keep it in their pants and brought back an extremely deadly disease that killed a bunch of people? Seems like the Spanish…
Sexually transmitted diseases………these are some very dirty people. Guess people can’t keep it in their pants…..even back then !
Maybe a bit of birth control was in order to keep this problem under control. Did they not have condomes or any other protection?
Interesting but not surprising lol
Well at least they set up shop to check in on people”s private area.
I thought I had syphilis one summer. Turns out, I was just really board.
Curious as to how they treated the disease without antibiotics I decided to look it up… Just be glad that if you were to get this now.. you wouldn’t have to be smothered in mercury or given malaria, as that was how they treated it.
Not all that surprising to me lol
Serves them right!
Interesting how fast something can spread, but not shocked
The best cure for STD’s is to abstain from having sex outside of marriage.
They kind of got what they deserved.
I thought this article was interesting. I wonder is Christopher Columbus’s crew did not bring syphilis over to Europe how did it get there? If we have no real prove is it safe for us to make that assumption?
I think its safe to make the assumption that columbus’ crew brought sypholus over. I mean we have to blame someone right?
I used to work in a hospital and STDs are no joke… Safe sex people or practice abstinence! — DAVID WARDLE
Makes sense if they didn’t know what protection was back in that time and I’m sure they deserved it .
Incredible how fast it spread, and the effect it had on people. Medicine has come a very long way since then.
Medicine has come a long way but so have diseases. We’ll never be fully protected but always take the precautions necessary!
what an ugly disease
Crazy how such a terrible diseases can be stopped with a simple medication.
Makes you thankful for living in modern times.
jwgwf q lytiškai plintančios ligos
When you think about the colonization of the Americas you tend to think about the diseases they took with them there, not really the ones they brought back to Europe
It is no surprise that soldiers would bring back diseases back home. Syphilis being one of them is no surprise either since in war the soldiers would do anything they wanted after invading cities and capturing people.
I mean it’s not that big of a surprise that soldiers took home disease’s like this. It was just discovered really so not everyone was really intact with this deadly disease.
I bet there was a ton of diseases going around at that time especially since they had no medicine or anything to treat them. It would suck knowing you had a disease and there was nothing you could do about it.
It seems like karmic justice for the Columbus crew bringing so many illnesses and disease to the New World.
Plenty of diseases were brought from the New World. Luckily medicine has come a long way
Kind of ironic since using disease to kill native americans was a popular tactic of the british
Unfortunately for the people of that time most medical lessons seemed to be learned the hard way. Thankfully we have come a long way in medical science and research.
This shows how far the world has come in terms of medical research.
hopefully with advances like this diseases we have trouble with today can be cured in the future
I never realized how far back this disease actually went. You would think with how far we have come since then we could do something more to cure it.
The British didn’t care what they did. They did a lot to the Native Americans and also brought over these diseases.
It is ironic that this disease may have come from Native Americans – could be karma
They kinda deserved it for their reckless misbehavior with the Native Americans.
thank god i was not born into that time period. but this does show how far we have come from our medical research
good thing we have modern medicines now!
They finally put two and two together and realized prostitution was a main cause of the spread of these diseases. Thankfully we have treatments and can even cure most diseases now.
The most important thing to gain from this article is how much treatments and knowledge about sexual transmitted diseases have improved over the years and the benefits of that newfound knowledge. It is evident that those diseases used to be an extremely scary topic. It is also good that people started to realize the negative effects of prostitution and tried to put an end to it.
It’s hard to believe that syphilis was a huge killer at one point, but then again so was the common cold. It’s a little sad the the spread of syphilis is what caused many to look down upon prostitution.
I think that the key word is “documented” when there was a description of the first syphilis outbreak in Italy. I think that venereal diseases have been around for much longer than people think and I think that that it is due to records and the growth of medical understanding. I think that the reason that Europeans had no immunity is because they had never been exposed to the kinds of venereal diseases in the colonies before, but I don’t think it was because those kinds of diseases didn’t exist at all in Europe.
We can be thankful that our medical field has expanded since this time. It is crazy to think that this sexually transmitted disease has been around since this time period.
In 1747, people had no clue what protection was or what sexually transmitted diseases actually were. Prostitution is also something that was found to be a negative act once linked to disease and syphilis and many other diseases. Just have to be thankful now that if now someone got a STD it could and can be treaded instead of death.
I wonder what it was like to have so many symptoms of a disease but no true way to know what the disease was or how to stop it. We are blessed to be living in a time when our medicine is as modern as it is.
I always hear about how the Europeans infected the Native Americans with diseases, yet I cannot recall learning that Native Americans infected Europeans too. Different groups of people interacting causes the spread of disease. Unfortunately, the infected people had no immunity to the diseases and often times died from them.
With the advancement of medicine over the year people have learned a lot about their body, how to treat it and how to protect it. I cannot imagine suffering from something and not knowing what it is! It sounds terrifying. It is scary to think of how many people have died because of sexually transmitted diseases over the years.
In today’s world a few doses of penicillin and a disease like syphilis can be helped. I wonder if any information about the discovery of the disease was relayed back to the Native Americans.
This article is another example of how advanced modern medicine is. A few hundred years ago, syphilis seemed to be a terminal illness. Today, we know how to combat the disease. I wonder what kind of medicine there will be a few hundred years from now.
This is one of the many stories about how one person contracted something and it spread throughout the country. Occurrences such as this were very common during this time, because medicine was not at its strong point and the disease, such as sexual transmitted ones, were able to spread rapidly through the towns. Having an opening of a clinic such as this was a good milestone in the right direction.
It is amazing how modern medicine can treat the causes of all these diseases that were once killers. We typically hear about Europeans spreading disease to the Natives, but this article showed that it worked both ways. This shows no one culture is immune to disease. While unfortunate, it is universal.
Diseases these days get treated so much easier than back then and I think we are all lucky for that. Amazing what some shots can do with these diseases these days.
I think the Europeans may have deserved to bring back syphilis after all the horrible diseases they brought to the Indians that practically wiped them out. It’s also interesting the spread of disease through prostitiutes resulted in its outlawing. I wonder if prior to this syphilis outbreak if there was no danger thought to be had by sleeping with a prostitiute.
Syphilis is still a disease we are dealing with today. Although we have advanced in treating it, it is crazy that it was first found back in 1494. Because it seems as though the countries of Europe had already had the disease I wonder if those soldiers really did receive it from Native Americans while overseas or if they had had it prior to going over there. If they did Syphilis can just be added to the list of diseases we brought to the new world killing Native Americans who had no immunities built up.
Christopher Columbus’ crew probably had no idea how they would change the world when they were “getting to know” the Native American ladies. Their actions led to a widespread disease that we are still battling and treating in the 21st century. The establishment of the first clinic to treat these venereal diseases was a huge step towards modern medicine we know and love today.
It is amazing that some diseases that were considered extremely deadly back then are now treated by a shot. It is crazy how far our medical world has come since times like these. It blows my mind how quickly diseases like this spread and how it killed so many people, all because Christopher Columbus’ crew members were messing around with Native Americans.
It is interesting to see that syphilis dates to this far back as being known as a sexually transmitted disease. It is cool to see where this disease started out from. I also think it is crazy that this disease is still seen today and people are still battling and having to treat it.
It is interesting to think if this started the dangerousness to sleeping with a prostitute, or if this is just the biggest reason. This also just shows how advanced society has become that this is not as server has back then.
Interesting article choice. Did the health center put you up to this?
*joking*
Pretty cool how it transformed into a women’s clinic!
From the article Syphilis seems like a terrible way to pass. It is interesting though to learn about the origin of diseases like this and how people throughout history have learned to treat it.
It amazes me how much of an impact the diseases that never touched a part of the world make when they hit new shores.
It is scary to think that due to today’s interconnectedness, it is nearly impossible to avoid spreading diseases. Who would have thought that Columbus’s crew messing around with the natives would be how syphilis would arrive in Europe.
This disease going all the way back to 1494 blows my mind. Although, it is a horrible disease and prostitutes were known for the transfer of it back then, many many people battle finding a treatment today. It’s sad.
It’s amazing to think this disease has been around for over 500 years and killed who knows how many and we still don’t have any resemblance of a cure.
Not really a part of history that I think of a lot. Definitely an intriguing story.. And it is interesting how they put laws into place after they realized prostitution was spreading the disease.
That’s great that it became a clinic for women!
I never knew this disease has been documented since 1494.
Thats very scary, i didnt know its been around so long, & there is still no cure but get use to disappointment. 🙁
That is crazy to think that our soldiers that are fighting for our country are also bringing back disease due to the sexual encounters they have while deployed. My sister’s husband is in the Marines so I hear many interesting stories on what happens while they are deployed.
I never knew that prostitution was considered the “oldest profession”.
Glad to know that at they thought to have a clinic for women and try to cure some of these stds
Thank god for London Lock Hospital because they started the first clinic specifically for the treatment of venereal diseases. I didn’t know that there was disease after having sex with Native Americans.
I never knew the disease existed back in 1494.
I guess syphilis was the price payed for slaughtering the Indians and taking their land.
How could the sailors that came to the new world possibly know that they got syphilis from the Native Americans? Many of those could have already contracted the disease earlier and didn’t know it, just saying.
It’s interesting to learn that this type of diseases existed back then, and still exists to this day!
I find it interesting that Columbus and his men were at fault for spreading the disease.
So this disease started from native Americans and Spaniards spread it? From there it manages to spread to the rest of the world
Syphilis is very easy to treat nowadays but back in Columbus times it was fatal and made people go mad!
Its crazy to see how far we’ve come in treating such diseases.
I never knew that there once was a widespread of Syphilis in Europe and the first case of it was in the late 15th century.. I thought more of these diseases was during the mid-20th century.
I never knew Columbus and his men were the ones who spread Syphilis.
I honestly had no idea that Syphilis was carried by the Native Americans.
science developed so fast on treating diseases that I can’t believe there is no cure for cancer yet
it may have spread by the men being with men because they were on the ship so long since there wasn’t to many woman that went to explore the new world.