De la clorosis a la anemia por deficiencia de hierro. La evolución histórica de una enfermedad

Abstract

Chlorosis was a very frequent disease in medical literature from the 16th century to the beginning of the 20th century . For more than four centuries, this disease, also known as “green sickness” or “virgin disease” (morbus virgineus), occupied a predominant place in medical consultation and reached “epidemic” proportions in the eighteenth century and XIX (it was the most frequent blood disease in this century), transcending the field of medicine itself, with important social implications and influence on European painting and literature of those years. For several centuries there was no agreement regarding its etiology, and it was not until the development of hematology that it was considered a frequent microcytic-hypochromic anemia in young women. When the mystery of its etiology was clarified, a new “mystery” occurred: its sudden disappearance from medical nosology and literature in the first decades of the last century. In this paper we review the historical evolution of a disease and the social construction of a concept of disease. Keywords: Chlorosis, iron deficiency anemia, green disease