Allan M. Brandt

The human response to venereal disease has always had a strongly social component. Not only is there biology involved; other factors also include prostitution, gender dynamics, sexuality, fear, and moralisms. In this work, Brandt identifies all of these impacts and constructs a narrative of how Americans have reacted to this disease since the underlying biology had begun to be unearthed in the late 19th century. He does so meticulously and comprehensively so that no important stone is left unturned and so that the reader has a 360-degree view of this often “hush-hush” matter.

This book begins in the progressive era when hope for triumph over social ills abounded. Already in this era, the disjunction of the causes of disease and morality can be seen. Individuals and groups emphasized an understanding of STDs either as a moral failing or as part-and-parcel of nature and life. While these differences in perspective underlay the social nature of this disease, they also impacted how the disease was portrayed among the public. The fundamental conflict of these approaches (morality vs. disease), well-illustrated by Brandt, seems to continue with us to this day.

This book provides an interesting take on human sexuality. As a history, the book’s contents are not meant to convey any inherently socially disruptive message. Nonetheless, it illustrates the shortcomings of many approaches towards sexuality from earlier times that are still with us. For instance, the need for personal responsibility is still an answer many give to sexual problems. Campaigns based on fear are still with us as are stigmatizations. The reader acquires an in-depth and intriguing view of the social dynamics of sexuality without being argued with. This side effect highlights the book’s strengths – that it treats a complex issue with fairness and objectivity.

Several themes should be noted. The military campaigns of the world wars are detailed because of their transformative impact. Not all trends continue with us; some trends change. For example, male use of prostitutes was viewed as a central issue in the late Victorian era and early 20th century; however, after World War II, premarital sex became a defining issue in its place. Effective medications also provided a means of social transformation towards sexual liberty while the resurgence of viruses (herpes and HIV) curtailed that same sexual liberty.

I wish more people would treat sexual diseases like Brandt does, with the seriousness they deserve. Sexuality is an important facet of human life, and despite the widely enforced cultural silence, its central social role is becoming increasingly identified. Likewise, disease is another facet with significant social import. The combination of these two – viewed through the prism of history – makes for a supremely interesting read. Despite being 35 years old, this book hits a high mark with erudition and excellence.… (altro)

The book is interesting at times, but it also does bog down in some technical minutiae. It is a history of the tobacco and cigarette industry from the early days in the United States to today. The changes in cultural norms over time is pretty interesting. It is interesting to see how cigarettes go from being something seen as healthy or beneficial to the terrible product they are perceived to be today. Also interesting is how the companies have done their best to deceive, misinform, misdirect, so on in the quest to keep their customers. The book does get a big long at times, and the pacing can be a bit slow. However, this is a pretty good expose of the industry. The book ends describing the current tragedy or crisis where the companies, finding their markets in the West dwindling, now are targeting Asia and the Third World in search of new clients. The problem, as we all know, is that this is a product that kills its customers. If you can stay with it, it can be a very sobering reading.… (altro)

Allan M Brandt’s “No Magic Bullet: a social history of venereal disease in the United States since 1880” was first published in 1985. A new edition came just two years later, I have to assume that is because its topic was changing so quickly with AIDS becoming common knowledge. I imagine Brandt wanted a do over on what he had written about AIDS in the first edition’s introduction.

Very early in the first chapter Brandt explains that doctors at first thought that women were not affected by gonorrhea. I was bothered by this not because I doubted it was true but because just a few pages earlier, in the introduction, Brandt wrote that AIDS was a disease of gay men without questioning what was considered true at the time. At the very least he should have mentioned that at one time gonorrhea had been considered the problem of only one gender. Why study history if we don’t use it to form questions about the present? Even in the introduction to the 1987 edition, when it was well known that there were multiple modes of transmission, he failed to mention the failure in physician's reasoning in assuming venereal disease, any disease, is limited by gender by anything other than ease of infection. Did Brandt miss the similarity of the failed assumptions about gonorrhea and AIDS? Did he simply choose not to mention it? I have to believe that if he had noticed it he would have mentioned it even if only to dismiss it as meaningless.

Brandt looked at only two parts of society in this “social history”. One made up of military and public health officials and the other made up of that large and vocal subset of the leisure class that makes everyone else's behaviour their business, moralists. The military and public health professionals followed the science but often were forced to bow to pressure from the moralists.

The moralists clamor for abstinence before during and after World War I. They continued to clamor for abstinence before during and after WWII. They are still at it. Then, as now, they are only concerned with their version of morality and about other people's behaviour, not their own. Brandt manages to overlook the opinions of working people, business men and women, minorities in regard to venereal disease. I was surprised that the book was from the 1980s and not the 1950s. People besides the powerful had their agency recognized in the 1960s, why not here?
Sometimes I feel I should make allowances for works of history that are as old as this, twenty eight years since the new edition, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Histories on on narrow topics like this are few and far between. Unlike books about Lincoln or major wars there is not a new volume on the history of VD being published every few months. A search of World Cat for the subject “Sexually Transmitted Diseases United States History” turns up only a few dissertations, several government publications that look like primary sources and Alexandrea Lord’s 2009 book “Condom Nation” which looks at government sponsored sex education from World War II to the present. Unfortunately this could be the go to book on social attitudes about VD for many more years. I hope a student interested in the subject gets creative in their readings and are able to find more than the two viewpoints Brandt offers on the subject.… (altro)