Download or read book The Secret Malady written by Linda Evi Merians and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Venereal disease existed in epidemical proportions in 18th-century France and Britain. Initially regarded as the subject for jokes and boasts of Restoration promiscuity, its prevalence as the century wore on forced people to take it seriously. Linda Merians offers a detailed study of the disease.