Erin Welsh

You may even be ostracized from your friends and family.

With so much at stake, it's no wonder people went to great lengths to manage or conceal their condition.

In The Dreaded Pox, Sex and Disease in Early Modern London, author Dr. Olivia Weiser, associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, peels back the curtain on the most intimate facets of Londoners' lives centuries ago.

Drawing from a wide variety of sources, from court records to recipe books, pox cure advertisements to personal diaries, Dr. Weiser transports readers back in time to the dirty streets of London.

Where might an impoverished maid seek help for her infection?

How might a gentleman choose between the many ready-made concoctions in the city's alleys?

Who were behind these lauded tinctures and ointments that provided nothing more than hope?

The dreaded pox is a fascinating glimpse into the daily lives of early modern Londoners as they navigated a world where sex and shame were so deeply entangled.

While today we have more scientific knowledge and the ability to treat and cure many sexually transmitted infections, that world is still familiar to us in many ways, which leads us to ask how far we have actually come and how much further we still need to go.

I had such a great time chatting with Dr. Weiser, and I'm so excited to share our conversation with you all.

So let's just take a quick break and get right into it.

Dr. Weiser, thank you so much for joining me today.

I cannot wait to dive into the world of venereal disease in the London of past centuries with you.

It's going to be a great time.

And I'm curious, though, could you tell me what drew you to this area and this era of scholarship?

Which is what I love so much about it.

You really transport readers to this era before germ theory, where London is growing at such a rapid pace and sex is changing.

All of these different components are changing, but also at the same time, we have these sentiments of shame and secrecy that surround not only sex, but then of course anything that's tied to sex, including this disease.

And we've been talking about this disease.

What is pox?