Feminizing venereal disease: the body of the prostitute in nineteenth-century medical discourse

Introduction - PART 1: FEMINISING VENEREAL DISEASE - The Sick Rose - The Source - PART 2: REGULATION - Implementing the System - Resisting the Acts - The New Campaign - PART 3: THE QUESTION OF CHILD PROSTITUTION - Pathologising Children - The Child Prostitute - PART 4: SYPHILIS, MALE SEXUALITY AND FEMALE DEGENERATION - The Sins of the Father - The Syphilitic as Moral Degenerate - CONCLUSION - Trapped in a Woman's Body? - Inde.

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In the late eighteenth century all women were considered potentially infectious to men but by the early twentieth century only certain women were considered vectors of disease. By focusing on representations of the prostitute in medical and legal discourse, art, literature and religion this book will chart these shifts, while at the same time exploring broader concerns about construction of femininity and masculinity, the protection of male sexual privilege and the impact of feminism and eugenics on medicine, the law and popular culture.