Cupid's disease

"Yes, Cupid's Disease—syphilis, you know. I was in a brother in Salonika, nearly seventy years ago. I caught syphilis—lots of the girls had it—we called it Cupid's Disease. My husband saved me, took me out, had it treated. That was years before penicillin, of course. Could it have caught up with me after all these years?"

Post-syphilic syndrome is reputedly rather fun. You get to experience lots of luscious sexy sensations. That's why it's called Cupid's Disease.

As the word "syphilis" took on the taint of the malady, however, vaguer tems such as special disease, social disease, secret disease, vice disease, Cupid's disease, a certain disease, blood disease, and blood poison emerged.

It wasn't Cupid's disease, as the gossipmongers charged. It was radium.

In the past, syphilis was called the French disease but was also known as the Christian disease, the Great Pox, Cupid's disease, and the Black Lion; it was most well-known as lues, lues venereal, or venereal plague.

Given the horror with which 'Cupid's disease' was regarded in 1900 Mary must have told as few people as possible of the real cause of her husband's decline into insanity.

Other names for syphilis were the "Spanish disease," with a similar story to its French counterpart, and "Cupid's disease," which really needs no explanation, as well as other descriptives.