In Search of Sexual Health with Elliott Bowen
I am very pleased to welcome Dr. Elliott Bowen to The Rogue Historian. Elliott is an assistant professor of history at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. His research revolves around the relationship between medicine and sexuality, and he is the author of In Search of Sexual Health: Diagnosing and Treating Syphilis in Hot Springs, Arkansas, 1890-1940 The book is brand new from Johns Hopkins University Press and I found it absolutely fascinating. I think you will too…we discuss:
Incipient health seeking…or what we might call health tourism
Syphilis as a morality issue - how beliefs about the disease shaped the treatment
Race, class, and gender - there are insights into all of these in the book
Treatment: the science vs. the shadiness
The United States Public Health Service and the official government position
How race structured patient experiences
Ho patients understood their disease and how one might capture their voices in the historical record
Holism - and the skepticism toward science and medicine
How we might learn some lessons as we respond to a health crisis of our own
Have a listen…
Of course you will want to pick up a copy of the very engaging book…and leave a comment for discussion!…and be sure to follow Elliott on Instagram and Twitter. For further reading on the social history of venereal disease, you might also want to check out No Magic Bullet by Allan M. Brandt. AND…don’t forget to subscribe to The Rogue Historian Podcast and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or your favorite app so you never ever ever ever miss a show. That would be dumb.
With compliments,
Keith