Sex and death

Histories of disease can be bestsellers and Peter Lewis Allen’s excellent
The Wages of Sin should go to the top of the list. He looks at the
relationship between sex and disease, morality and death. Here you’ll find
Calvin fulminating about syphilis and an extraordinary flow chart showing when
to have safe sex, mediaeval style. That meant sex at a time when it didn’t
imperil your soul. Published by University of Chicago Press, $25, ISBN
0226014606.