Syphilis historical perspective
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [2]
Overview
Alternative names
The name "syphilis" was coined by the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro in his epic noted poem, written in Latin, entitled Syphilis sive morbus gallicus (Latin for "Syphilis or The French Disease") in 1530. The protagonist of the poem is a shepherd named Syphilus (perhaps a variant spelling of Sipylus, a character in Ovid's Metamorphoses). Syphilus is presented as the first man to contract the disease, sent by the god Apollo as punishment for the defiance that Syphilus and his followers had shown him. From this character Fracastoro derived a new name for the disease, which he also used in his medical text De Contagionibus ("On Contagious Diseases").
Until that time, as Fracastoro notes, syphilis had been called the "French disease" in Italy and Germany, and the "Italian disease" in France. In addition, the Dutch called it the "Spanish disease", the Russians called it the "Polish disease", the Turks called it the "Christian disease" or "Frank disease" (frengi) and the Tahitians called it the "British disease". These 'national' names are due to the disease often being present among invading armies or sea crews, due to their high amount of unprotected sexual contacts with prostitutes. It's interesting to notice how the invaders named it after the invaded country and vice versa. It was also called "Great pox" in the 16th century to distinguish it from smallpox. In its early stages, the Great pox produced a rash similar to smallpox (also known as variola). However, the name is misleading, as smallpox was a far more deadly disease. The terms "Lues" (or Lues venerea, Latin for "venereal plague") and "Cupid's disease" have also been used to refer to syphilis. In Scotland, Syphilis was referred to as the Grandgore. It was also called The Black Lion.
Origins
There have been three theories on the origin of syphilis which formed an ongoing debate in anthropological and historical fields.
The pre-Columbian theory holds that syphilis symptoms are described by Hippocrates in Classical Greece in its venereal/tertiary form. There are other suspected syphilis findings for pre-contact Europe, including at a 13–14th century Augustinian friary in the northeastern English port of Kingston upon Hull. This city's maritime history is thought to have been a key factor in the transmission of syphilis.[1] Carbon dated skeletons of monks who lived in the friary showed bone lesions typical of venereal syphilis. Skeletons in pre-Columbus Pompeii and Metaponto in Italy demonstrating signs of congenital syphilis have also been found[2], although the interpretation of the evidence has been disputed.[3]
The Columbian Exchange theory holds that syphilis was a New World disease brought back by Columbus and Martin Alonzo Pinzon. Supporters of the Columbian theory find syphilis lesions on pre-contact Native Americans and cite documentary evidence linking crewmen of Columbus's voyages to the Naples outbreak of 1494.[4] A recent study of the genes of venereal syphilis and related bacteria have supported this theory, by locating an intermediate disease between yaws and syphilis in Guyana, South America.[5][6]
Historian Alfred Crosby suggests both theories are correct in a combination theory. Crosby's argument is built on the similarities of the species of bacteria which cause yaws and syphilis. The bacteria that causes syphilis belongs to the same phylogenetic family as the bacteria which cause yaws and several other diseases. Despite a tradition of assigning yaws's homeland to sub-Saharan Africa, Crosby notes that there is no unequivocal evidence of any related disease being present in pre-Columbian Europe, Africa, or Asia, while there is indisputable evidence of syphilis' presence in the pre-Columbian Americas. Conceding this point, Crosby writes, "It is not impossible that the organisms causing treponematosis arrived from America in the 1490s...and evolved into both venereal and non-venereal syphilis and yaws."[7]
However, Crosby considers it somewhat more likely that a highly contagious ancestral species of bacteria moved with early human ancestors across the land bridge of the Bering Straits many thousands of years ago without dying out in the original source population. He hypothesizes that "the differing ecological conditions produced different types of treponematosis and, in time, closely related but different diseases".[8] Thus, a weak, non-syphilitic bacteria survived in the Old World to eventually give rise to yaws or bejel, while a New World version evolved into the milder pinta and the more aggressive syphilis.
Going further than Crosby in arguing for worldwide incidence of syphilis prior to Columbus, Douglas Owsley, the famed physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institute, has written that many medieval European cases of leprosy, colloquially called "lepra," were actually cases of syphilis. Although folklore claimed that syphilis was unknown in Europe until the return of the diseased sailors of the Columbian voyages,
| “ | . . . syphilis probably cannot be "blamed"—as it often is—on any geographical area or specific race. The evidence suggests that the disease existed in both hemispheres from prehistoric times. It is only coincidental with the Columbus expeditions that the syphilis previously thought of as "lepra" flared into virulence at the end of the fifteenth century.[9] | ” |
Owsley noted that a Chinese medical case recorded in 2637 B.C.E. seems to be describing a case of syphilis, and that a European writer who recorded an outbreak of "lepra" in 1303 C.E. is "clearly describing syphilis".[9]
History
While working at the Rockefeller Institute in 1913, Hideyo Noguchi, a Japanese scientist, demonstrated the presence of the spirochete Treponema pallidum in the brain of a progressive paralysis patient, proving that Treponema pallidum was the cause of the disease. [3] Prior to Noguchi's discovery, syphilis had been a burden to humanity in many lands, sometimes misdiagnosed and often misattributed to political enemies.
The insanity caused by late-stage syphilis was once one of the more common forms of dementia; this was known as the general paresis of the insane. One suspected example is the insanity of noted composer Robert Schumann, although the precise cause of his death is still disputed by scholars.
European outbreak
The first well-recorded European outbreak of what is now known as syphilis occurred in 1494 when it broke out among French troops besieging Naples.[10] The French may have caught it via Spanish mercenaries serving King Charles of France in that siege.[9] From this centre, the disease swept across Europe. As Jared Diamond describes it, "when syphilis was first definitely recorded in Europe in 1495, its pustules often covered the body from the head to the knees, caused flesh to fall from people's faces, and led to death within a few months." In addition, the disease was more frequently fatal than it is today. Diamond concludes that "by 1546, the disease had evolved into the disease with the symptoms so well known to us today."[11] The epidemiology of this first syphilis epidemic shows that the disease was either new or a mutated form of an earlier disease.
References
- ↑ Keys, David (2007). "English syphilis epidemic pre-dated European outbreaks by 150 years". Independent News and Media Limited.
- ↑ Henneberg M, Henneberg RJ, 1994, Treponematosis in an Ancient Greek colony of Metaponto, Southern Italy 580-250 BCE [in:] O Dutour, G Palfi, J Berato, J-P Brun (eds), The Origin of Syphilis in Europe, Before or After 1493?, Centre Archeologique du Var, Editions Errance Toulon-Paris, pp. 92-98, Henneberg M, Henneberg RJ, 2002 Reconstructing Medical Knowledge in Ancient Pompeii from the Hard Evidence of Bones and Teeth. In: J Renn, G Castagnetti (eds) Homo Faber: Studies on Nature. Technology and Science at the Time of Pompeii, “L’ERMA” di Bretschneider, Rome, pp.169-187.
- ↑ Origins of Syphilis
- ↑ Baker, et al.
- ↑ http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13186-columbus-blamed-for-spread-of-syphilis-.html
- ↑ http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0000148
- ↑ ref:225 Crosby
- ↑ ref:225 Crosby
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 [1] John Lobdell and Douglas Owsley, Journal of Sex Research, August 1974, Vol. 10:1 pp. 76-79. Accessed via JSTOR August 5, 2007.
- ↑ Oriel, J.D. (1994). The Scars of Venus: A History of Venereology. London: Springer-Verlag.
- ↑ Diamond, Jared (1997). Guns, Germs and Steel. New York: W.W. Norton. p. 210.