Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [175]
Breast-feeding in the Dutch Republic Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London: Fontana, 1991), pp. 538–40.
Burial of Cornelisz’s son GAH, burial registers 70, fol. 83v.
Syphilis in infants Congenital syphilis is a well-recognized condition that affects about 70 percent of children whose mothers are infected with the disease and have not been treated. T. pallidum, the bacterium that causes the condition, infects the fetus through the placenta and the child is born with syphilis. The symptoms may not be visible at first and may take up to five weeks to manifest themselves. Early indications of the disease include bloody snuffles in the first weeks of the baby’s life, the appearance of a syphilitic rash after one to two weeks, and fissures on the lips and anus.
It was once thought that diseased wet nurses could infect their charges with syphilis through their milk; indeed Ludwig II, the notorious “Mad King of Bavaria,” was popularly supposed to have been given syphilis by his nurse. This method of transmission is now thought to be a myth. Nevertheless, medical literature acknowledges the possibility that a very young infant may be infected with the disease by a third party shortly after birth. Transmission is by contact with open sores on the infected person’s body. Luger studied the case of three syphilitic infants reported from Vienna in 1968. His findings were that the disease could not have been transmitted venereally but was probably the product of crowded conditions and unsanitary housing. Eisenberg et al. had already reported 20 similar cases of asexually acquired syphilis from Chicago. H. Eisenberg, F. Plotke, and A. Baker, “Asexual Syphilis in Children,” Journal of Venereal Diseases Information 30 (1949): 7–11; A. Luger, “Non-Venereally Transmitted ‘Endemic’ Syphilis in Vienna,” British Journal of Venereal Diseases 48 (1972): 356–60; K. Rathblum, “Congenital Syphilis,” Sexually Transmitted Diseases 10 (1983): 93–9.
“. . . this was a very serious concern.” Not only was it the case that in the Dutch Republic at this time, women infected with venereal diseases by their husbands were considered to have grounds for separation (Schama, op. cit., p. 406); in Haarlem, in the 1620s, it was difficult to survive at all without the goodwill and respect of one’s neighbors.
Like many other cities in the United Provinces, Haarlem was a town full of strangers. The population had grown by a third since 1600, swollen by refugees who had fled from the Southern Netherlands during the war with Spain. Others, including Jeronimus and perhaps his wife, had arrived from other parts of the Republic, bringing with them a variety of religious views, social mores, and degrees of wealth. For the 10,000 immigrants who had moved to the city, most of whom had no family or friends to whom they could turn in times of trouble, it was particularly important to be able to rely on assistance from the gebuurte, or neighborhood.
Haarlem recognized almost 100 such neighborhoods, and the Grote Houtstraat, where Cornelisz lived, contained no fewer than five. Honor mattered greatly in these miniature societies. Without it, it was impossible to obtain credit, and—since the presence of disreputable people brought discredit on their neighbors—any loss of honor was a matter of concern for the whole gebuurte. It is only in this context that the frantic efforts that Jeronimus and Belijtgen made to clear themselves of the suspicion that they were infected with syphilis can be properly understood. See Gabrielle Dorren, “Burgers en Hun Besognes. Burgemeestersmemorialen en Hun Bruikbaarheid als Bron voor Zeventiende-Eeuws Haarlem,” Jaarboeck Haarlem (1995): 58; idem, Het Soet Vergaren: Haarlems Buurtleven in de Zeventiende Eeuw (Haarlem: Arcadia, 1998), pp. 12–3, 16, 22–3, 27–9; idem, “Communities Within the Community,” pp. 178, 180–3.
Economic conditions in the Dutch Republic in the 1620s Israel, op. cit., pp. 478–9.
The disgrace of bankruptcy