From Body to Community

Using the sole surviving admissions book for Toledo, Spain’s Hospital de Santiago, Cristian Berco reconstructs the lives of men and women afflicted with the pox by tracing their experiences before, during, and after their hospitalization.

Cristian Berco is the Canada Research Chair in Social and Cultural Difference and a professor in the Department of History at Bishop’s University.

"This volume significantly enhances our understanding of the pox in early modern Iberia."

Robert Weston, The University of Western Australia:

"Berco has produced a very readable book, of interest to those studying the history of Baroque Spain and the history of medicine."

John Slater:

‘A fascinating book that tells the stories of lives that intersected in the Hospital de Santiago.’

Daniel A. Crew:

‘Berco’s writing style is commendable as it avoids medical jargon…. Despite the subject matter, it was a fun to read suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate student.’

Kristy Wilson Bowers:

‘Berco is to be commended for making such diligent and fruitful use of what are generally quite dry and often tedious records to scour… This book contributes an important perspective for both medical and social historians.’

Mona O’Brien:

‘Berco’s study provides an important contribution for any future comparative work. Scholars should benefit from and extend Berco’s innovative use of sources.’

Michele Clouse, Department of History, Ohio University:

“Through his thorough reading of the only extant patient admissions book for Toledo’s syphilis hospital, Berco provides an insider’s view of the procedures, policies, and ideologies that shaped syphilitics’ experiences during their internment. One can only be impressed by Berco’s ability to tease every shred of useful information from hospital records that are notoriously difficult to work with and frustratingly limited as a source.”

Laura J. McGough, author of 'Gender, Sexuality, and Syphilis in Early Modern Venice':

“From Body to Community is a fresh, well-written, and approachable social history of disease, gender, and social relations in early modern Toledo. Berco’s sensitivity and empathy make his writing on the experience of undergoing treatment at a syphilis hospital the most vivid history of syphilis I have read.”