Dangerous liaisons : a social history of venereal disease in twentieth-century Scotland / Roger Davidson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Davidson, Roger, 1942- author.

Series:

Clio medica (Amsterdam, Netherlands) ; 57.

Wellcome Institute series in the history of medicine.

Clio Medica ; 57

Wellcome Institute Series in the History of Medicine

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sexually transmitted diseases--Scotland--History--20th century.

Sexually transmitted diseases.

Sex--Scotland--History--20th century.

Sex.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vii, 383 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Brill 2000

Amsterdam, Netherlands ; Atlanta, Georgia : Rodopi, 2000.

Summary:

This book explores the role of Venereal Disease in shaping perceptions of sexuality in twentieth-century Scotland, and in defining the response of the Modern State to patterns of sexual behaviour. It examines how civic, medical and political authorities reacted to the 'Hideous Scourge' in times of peace and war and how far policy was informed by anxieties surrounding social change and public morality as much as by the incidence of disease and developments in medical knowledge. It focuses in particular on the moral assumptions underpinning epidemiological debate, and the various dimensions of stigmatisation and control within VD discourse, including gender, generation and class. This study also highlights the protracted campaign in Scotland for legal controls over those suffering from VD, and the enduring problem, resurrected by the threat of HIV and AIDS, of balancing the demands of public health against those of civil liberties in the regulation of 'dangerous sexualities'.

Contents:

Introduction: The Context

Public Health, Public Morality and VD in Early-Twentieth-Century Scotland

The Establishment of a VD Service

‘The Cinderella Service’: Doctors, Patients and Therapies in Interwar Scotland

Sin and Suffering: The Moral Agenda of VD Administration, 1918–39

Images of Social Hygiene: VD Propaganda in Interwar Scotland

Outcomes: The Impact of Public Health Provisions 1918–39

‘A Scourge to be Firmly Gripped’: The Campaign for VD Controls in Interwar Scotland

Combating ‘The Great Evil’: VD Policy in the Second World War

‘The Price of the Permissive Society’: The Incidence and Epidemiology of VD, 1948–80

‘A Specialty in Crisis’: The Status and Resourcing of Venereology, 1948–80

‘Breaking the Chain of Infection’: Treatment and Control Strategies 1948–80

Conclusion: VD in the Age of AIDS

Appendices

Sources and Select Bibliography.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-33331-2

OCLC:

45139781

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004333314 DOI