Green-Sickness

Image Credit: Photographer Klaus Enrique Gerdes created a series of portraits made of fruits, flowers, and vegetables called “arcimboldo”. The name comes from “Giuseppe Arcimboldo” the 16th Century painter famous for painting portraits – over 400 years ago – entirely made up of fruits, vegetables, plants and other inanimate objects that still captures the imagination of art enthusiasts the world over

Until the nineteenth century, unspecified chronic anaemia was known as chlorosis, or the “green sickness,” referring to the extreme pallor that characterized severe cases. For centuries, “chlorosis, or green sick-Dutch painters portrayed the pale olive complexion of chlorosis in portraits of young women” (Farley and Foland 1990: 89). Although such extreme cases are not common in Western societies today, less severe acquired anaemia is quite common. In fact, acquired anaemia is one of the most prevalent health conditions in modern populations.

Technically, anaemia is defined as a subnormal number of red blood cells per cubic millimeter (cu mm), subnormal amount of hemoglobin in 100 milliliter (ml) of blood, or subnormal volume of packed red blood cells per 100 ml of blood, although other indices are usually also used. Rather than imputing anaemia to unrequited love, modern medicine generally imputes it to poor diets that fail to replenish iron loss resulting from rapid growth during childhood, from menstruation, from pregnancy, from injury, or from hemolysis. One of today's solutions to the frequency of acquired anaemia is to increase dietary intake of iron. This is accomplished by indiscriminate and massive iron fortification of many cereal products, as well as the use of prescription and nonprescription iron supplements, often incorporated in vitamin pills. However, a nutritional etiology of anaemia as dietary has, in the past, been assumed more often than proven. Determining such an etiology is complicated by the fact that the hematological presentation of dietary-induced iron deficiency anaemia resembles the anaemia of chronic disease.

Kent, Susan. "Iron Deficiency and Anemia of Chronic Disease." The Cambridge World History of Food. Eds. Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas. Cambridge University Press, 2000.Cambridge Histories Online. Cambridge University Press. 28 June 2012 DOI:10.1017/CHOL9780521402149.104   

Trivia; Green sickness was 17th century British slang for sexual urges, especially in women.

Further Resources

Viriditas: secret histories of women - the blog of author Mary Sharratt

Hoydens & Firebrands: roaring ladies who write about the seventeenth century