Podcast: The Syphilis Explosion of the American Civil War
Podcast: The Syphilis Explosion of the American Civil War
It’s been estimated that between eight and twelve percent of soldiers contracted a venereal disease during the American Civil War. What on earth were they up to? 2024 Dan David Prize winner Kathryn Olivarius is a professor at Stanford University. She joins sex historian Dr Kate Lister on Betwixt the Sheets to discuss syphilis, why it spread so far during the war and how its impact continued after the war ended. Kathryn is the author of ‘Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom’.
