The origin of this infectious disease that has afflicted Europeans is a mystery.

uncharted waters online

Medieval Arabs used mercury to treat skin diseases such as leprosy and yaws. In 1496, Italian doctors began to treat syphilis with mercury. Until the application of penicillin, mercury was the general plan to deal with syphilis.

In 1498, Columbus sailed to America for the third time. At sea, he had a high fever, fatigue, insomnia and general pain. He prayed to God not to let his eyes bleed again.

Then, Columbus said that he heard the voice of God, and he was confident that he had been chosen by God to spread his faith to the new world.

Hundreds of years later, some scholars thought that Columbus had syphilis according to various symptoms. At the beginning of 16th century, syphilis quickly spread all over the world, and became the secret of countless people. So far, it is still a vicious infectious disease that affects tens of millions of people.

But the origin of syphilis is still a mystery.

Columbus was the first unlucky guy?

On March 15th, 1493, Columbus’ fleet returned to Spain. In 1495, Naples suffered the first syphilis outbreak in world history. Is this a coincidence?

For 500 years, many epidemiologists believed that the pathogen of syphilis was brought back by Columbus from Hispaniola (today’s Haiti and Dominica).

Looking through the records of that year, in 1494, Columbus and his crew had a collective fever, which they called "the scourge."

On August 31, 1498, Columbus returned to the island of Hispaniola and found that a quarter of the Spaniards who stayed there had "Gaul disease", that is, syphilis.

On the return trip, Columbus was locked in the brig on the ship. He had a fever, aching all over, swollen joints and nervous system. According to Columbus’s medical records, he began to be incoherent, on the verge of madness, and acted insane.

In 1502, Columbus sailed to the New World for the fourth and last time. Because "arthritis and gout" were too serious, he had to entrust his duties to his companions.

On this voyage, he repeatedly claimed that he had entered the gate of hell. In October of that year, off the coast of Costa Rica, he had hallucinations, thought he was sent by God, and heard a sad voice, reminding him that this was a voyage to abide by the Bible and to believe in Almighty God. Columbus decided that he was chosen by God, and he wanted to bring the light of faith to the distant savage world.

Returning to Spain in 1504, Columbus was very ill and was carried off the ship. His violent cough resounded through the dock, and his feet and stomach swelled up.

On May 20th, 1506, Columbus died. Before he died, he was poor and fell into a semi-crazy state. His last words were: "God! I put my soul into your hands. "

Medical scientists once thought that Columbus had typhus and rheumatic heart disease and so on. It was not until the 20th century that it was suggested that Columbus might die of syphilis. A doctor believes that edema all over the body below the chest, such as heart valve damage, quadriplegia and insanity, are typical symptoms of syphilis at the end.

Columbus fell ill with fever and insanity when he lived in Hispaniola. A few years later, he had a fever again, his eyes were inflamed, and he was accompanied by rheumatism and gout-like conditions, which was considered as a symptom of syphilis in the second stage.

If Columbus really had syphilis, he would undoubtedly rank first in the celebrity list of syphilis.

In 1494, ambitious Charles VIII, with a huge French army, made an expedition to Naples, the most prosperous city in Europe at that time. Naples soon surrendered, and French soldiers and Italian citizens hung out all day and had fun.

Unexpectedly, French soldiers are suffering from strange diseases one after another: the whole body is covered with pustules, which quickly fester and are very disgusting. It wasn’t long before the patient died. Charles VIII probably suffered from the same disease and died at the age of 28.

The French army thought it was infected by Neapolitans and called it "Neapolitan disease". The Neapolitans thought it was brought by the French and called it "Gaul disease".

The plague forced the French army to retreat in 1495. Mercenaries from various countries were dissolved on the spot and returned to Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, and soon "Gaul disease" appeared in various places. In 1496, in a woodcut by the great artist Al Brecht Diu Lei (who was also suspected of having syphilis), many pustules were clearly visible on the arm of a mercenary. It is said that this is an illustration for a medical paper on syphilis.

The Portuguese fleet brought syphilis to India and Southeast Asia. Before 1521 (the year Magellan came to the Philippines), syphilis had been introduced to China and Japan.

Europeans are helpless about syphilis.

Syphilis is caused by Treponema pallidum (Treponema pallidum is a microorganism, neither a bacterium nor a virus), which is mainly transmitted through sex. The disease lasts for decades, sometimes lurking, and sometimes onset. It can cause systemic inflammation with various symptoms, such as acne rash, fever, fatigue, etc. in the early stage, it may lead to organ damage in the late stage, and brain damage will cause mental illness-hence the nickname of syphilis "the great imitator".

Syphilis is "good at imitation", and infected people will hide their contact history, so it is difficult for doctors to diagnose it. It is the pleasure of many historical detectives to guess which celebrities have had syphilis. The list of suspicions is extremely long, including Beethoven, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Lincoln, Hitler and so on.

In 1520, Erasmus, a great scholar, said, "If someone asked me what disease killed the most people, I would say it was this disease … more terrible than all other contagious diseases."

At the same time, the writer rabelais wrote syphilis into Biography of the Giant. After several decades, Shakespeare also wrote syphilis into his plays.

During Magellan’s voyage around the world, it was inferred from the symptoms that French King Francois I, British King Henry VIII and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V might have contracted syphilis.

Civilians are also badly hurt by syphilis. Especially in big cities with active floating population. A paper published last year said that at least one fifth of London residents 250 years ago had syphilis.

500 years ago, people put forward many theories of syphilis formation, such as eating potatoes, eating American iguanas, and unfair sex being condemned by God. And astrologers attributed it to an intersection of Saturn and Jupiter in 1484 …

Medieval Arabs used mercury to treat skin diseases such as leprosy and yaws. In 1496, Italian doctors began to treat syphilis with mercury. Until the application of penicillin, mercury was the general plan to deal with syphilis. The doctor rubbed the patients’ skin with mercury and made them take mercury ointment. And let the patient sit in a closed box and kill the virus with mercury vapor.

In the 1940s, the newly invented penicillin was used against spirochetes, and syphilis was finally cured. Today, however, tens of millions of people around the world are still suffering from syphilis because of its drug resistance.

The confusing source

In 1518, a book in Venice first suggested that strange diseases might have been brought to Europe by Columbus’ sailors. If it is a new disease from America, it can explain why syphilis was very deadly at the end of the 15th century, and infected people died soon.

In addition, in the 1990s, two American scientists examined 687 ancient Indian skeletons from the United States and Ecuador. In some areas, syphilis virus has been found in 40% bones. They believe that syphilis was common on Hispaniola Island when Columbus landed. Therefore, the mainstream view in academic circles supports "Columbus’s theory of communication".

However, McNeil, the author of Plague and Man, believes that syphilis is an ancient skin disease that has been circulating in Europe for a long time and is confused with leprosy. "Leprosy" in the Middle Ages and earlier refers to infectious diseases that can damage the skin. After the appearance of syphilis, leprosy no longer bothered Europeans as before. Some people think that this is the result of beginning to regard syphilis and leprosy as two diseases. Others suspect that in 1490, the Pope abolished all leprosy hospitals in Europe and allowed a large number of patients to go home, which is the source of syphilis. This hypothesis is also known as the "European origin theory".

In addition, a small number of ancient remains unearthed in Europe show that there seems to be syphilis symptoms. For example, the remains of a woman who seems to be infected with syphilis found in Essex, England, are estimated to have lived between 1296 and 1445, before Columbus. However, in 2011, there was another appraisal that this kind of remains found in Europe and other places were not diagnosed as syphilis.

In 2020, scientists used molecular dating of ancient bacterial genomes and traditional radiocarbon dating of samples to test the age of treponema pallidum in human remains from Finland, Estonia and the Netherlands. The results show that their genomes can be traced back to the early 15th century to the 18th century.

In a cemetery in Lithuania in the 15th century, scientists found the remains of a woman with yaws. Yaws is a close relative of syphilis, which is caused by another subspecies of spirochete and spread through skin contact. Today, yaws is mostly found only in tropical and subtropical regions. But archaeological results suggest that there was yaws in medieval Europe.

Scientists also found a pathogen in the ancient bones found in the Netherlands, which belongs to a new and unknown treponema pedigree, parallel to syphilis and yaws, but now it no longer exists.

Dating of different treponema family trees shows that these different subspecies differentiated at least 2500 years ago. The differentiation of syphilis-associated spirochetes began between the 12th and 16th centuries-before Columbus got sick.

One hypothesis is that primates in tropical areas have always been the hosts of spirochetes, which are spread by skin contact, such as yaws disease; In the cold regions of Europe, skin-to-skin contact transmission is no longer effective due to the barrier of clothes, and sexual transmission takes the opportunity to become the mainstream. This hypothesis supports the theory of European origin.

Nevertheless, before more evidence appears, there are still many mysteries about the origin of syphilis.