For centuries, physicians described a puzzling illness that seemed to haunt young women on the edge of adulthood. Its sufferers were said to grow pale, weak, breathless, tired, and sometimes strangely green in complexion. Their appetites changed, their hearts raced, and their menstrual cycles became irregular.
The condition eventually became known as green sickness. But it also carried a more revealing nickname: the disease of virgins. Green sickness was a historical label and not a modern diagnosis for any disease. It became closely associated with chlorosis, a condition described in girls and young women as pale, weak, breathless, and physically drained. The word “chlorosis” comes from a Greek root connected with greenish or pale coloring. Doctors used it because sufferers were said to look unusually pale, waxy, yellow-green, or almost bloodless. The famous green tint may not have actually been literal in every patient. Some later writers doubted that the skin was truly green, and they suggested that it was nothing more than an impression created by pallor and illness. Some historians have argued that chlorosis was probably not even one single disease. The same label may have gathered together distinct conditions, including forms of anemia and other patterns of illness. Early English vernacular in medicine used "green sickness" before the virgin-centered diagnosis fully took shape. In some early texts, it resembled a digestive disorder connected with jaundice and affected both sexes. By the 16th century, physicians increasingly described a specifically female illness called morbus virgineus, meaning the disease of virgins. Puberty, menstruation, unmarried status, and sexual inexperience became tangled together. In 1554, German physician Johannes Lange described pale young women with weakness, palpitations, poor appetite, breathlessness during movement, and swollen ankles. His account helped shape the later medical picture.
