ABSTRACT
Among the many threats to health in the late Middle Ages, the French Disease was distinctive. Since the disastrous advent of the Black Death in 1348 there had been epidemics of greater or lesser impact and of different diseases, the most of them being the English Sweats. Most of these diseases were acute and when fatal killed quickly, in days or sometimes hours. When the French Disease appeared, many different groups of people became involved and each had their own problem. The general reaction by those uninfected was one of fear and disgust. Their problem was to avoid infection and the sight of the infected. The biggest problem of course was that of the victims. They wanted desperately to find a cure for their frightful disease. University practitioners first had to give the French Disease a proper name. This meant identifying it with something within the medical literature, so that its nature, its causes and treatment could be discovered.
