Harmful or Healthful? Medical Perspectives on Cannibalism in Early Modern Europe

When syphilis broke out in Europe during the late fifteenth century, people debated the disease’s origins. Many believed that it had arrived from the recently encountered “New World” (Eamon 2), but Bolognese surgeon Leonardo Fioravanti (1517-88) proposed that the outbreak was caused by cannibalism that had occurred during the French invasion of Naples in 1494….

Menopause: The Female Mummy’s Curse

Fig. The Opening of the Tomb of Nitocris by Darius (?) – René-Antoine Houasse circa 1686   Daisy Butcher The nineteenth century’s fascination with Egypt reached its apogee in the Mummy novel—from Jane Webb Loudon’s 1827 The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, the first book to feature a reanimated Egyptian mummy, to Bram…