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I first approached Jason and Mangesh because I wanted to write an article about rare skin diseases. After they finished retching, they said “No, thank you,” but invited me to blog on less gruesome forms of weird science. You’ll find a smorgasbord of such topics here in the weeks to come, including installments on food science, famous poisons and home inventions. Besides an abiding passion for medical trivia, I’m driven by a sense of wonder at the body, in sickness and in health. I hope you’ll weigh in on what else you’d like to read. We begin today with a study of Syphilis, one of Five Infamous Epidemics We Hope We Never See.
A POX UPON YOU: SYPHILIS
• There are popular theories that many famous people suffered syphilis, including Shakespeare, Beethoven, Lincoln, Nietzsche, Lenin, and Hitler, but the evidence is circumstantial in most of these cases. But Al Capone did have syphilis, a doozy of a case, and it got bad while he was in prison. By 1938, the Alcatraz inmate showed many of the classic symptoms: skin lesions, dementia, hallucinations, difficulty standing, seizures, and personality changes.
• The conventional theory on syphilis is that Christopher Columbus and his crew brought it to Europe after sleeping with Native American women in the New World. Wherever it came from, syphilis rocked Europe. By 1700, a quarter of its population had “the great pox.”
• Syphilis has a rich history of recrimination—and lots of other names! Because of its association with Columbus, who sailed under Spanish flag, Europeans called it the Spanish disease. The French called syphilis the Neapolitan or Italian disease, because they caught it from residents of Naples, home of a major outbreak. The Russians called it a Polish disease. The Polish called it a Russian disease. The Turks called it a Christian disease. The English called syphilis the French Pox.
• Syphilis was quite common in Shakespeare’s England, and his characters often used it as a curse: “A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, uncharitable dog!” (The Tempest 1.1.21) or “A pox of your houses” (Romeo and Juliet 3.1.60).
• The conventional treatment for several hundred years was to inhale mercury vapor, which did kill the spirochete that causes syphilis—but it also poisoned the patient.
• From 1932 to 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study in rural Alabama. The idea was to examine the effects of untreated syphilis in 600 African-American men. But in the process, according to the CDC, the men were “never given adequate treatment for their disease.” Some of the men weren’t even told they had syphilis! The resulting investigation led to laws requiring that patients give their informed consent to participate in a study, but only after researchers must provide certain information to participants before a study begins. This principle now guides medical studies nationwide.
Coming Tomorrow: The Plague.
Comments (12)
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Wonderful! I wanna learn more about these things! XD …im so weird…
posted by Senia on 10-1-2007 at 11:32 am
I know the origins of Syphilis in Europe has been hotly debated. That being said, if the bacteria mutated in the New World and the Native Americans gave it to Chris & Co then fair is fair: The Europeans gave them measles and other communicable diseases not indigenous to NA.
posted by JaneM on 10-1-2007 at 11:50 am
personally, i would find a blog on rare skin diseases fascinating
posted by samantha on 10-1-2007 at 11:55 am
PBS did a show on this couple of years ago. They found some corpse with traces of syphilis buried in English port town that placed him in time before Syphilis was widespread. Subsequent tests showed it was benign bacteria originating in NA that mutated into its deadlier form after contact with the Europeans.
posted by Marco Collins on 10-1-2007 at 12:28 pm
Good to see you here, Chris!
posted by Miss Cellania on 10-1-2007 at 12:43 pm
Scott Joplin, the ragtime composer, had Syphilis.
It will be cool to read about the skin diseases in future blogs. Would you mind putting some source information for further study in upcoming blogs?
posted by Daniel on 10-1-2007 at 12:44 pm
Daniel — My fault for not including all the relevant links. I posted this on Chris’ behalf. He dutifully left me all the sources, and I un-dutifully ignored them. Here you go:
Beethoven: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17214130&ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Nietzsche:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17881977&ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Lenin:
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9807EFD61239F931A15755C0A9629C8B63&n=Top%2fNews%2fHealth%2fDiseases%2c%20Conditions%2c%20and%20Health%20Topics%2fSyphilis
Capone:
medscape.com/viewarticle/552265_3
(registration required)
Conventional Theory:
alpha.qmul.ac.uk/~ugbt794/Knell_2004.pdf
Alternate names:
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_8_109/ai_65913170
Tuskegee:
cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
posted by Jason on 10-1-2007 at 12:51 pm
The medical museum in Philidelphia Pa has some interesting stuff about Syphilis including skulls of people who had advanced cases. Pretty creepy, yet, very cool
posted by Sam on 10-1-2007 at 12:56 pm
i love stuff like this. my husband and i were just discussing the other day how syphillis and ghonnorea (sp?) were the only big vd’s for so long, and now there are so many out there. we were wondering where they all came from, and why all started spreading in a relatively short amount of time. that would be an interesting blog. we like medical oddities.
posted by lindsay m on 10-1-2007 at 1:46 pm
Q:What do you call a man who had AIDS, syphilis,herpes, and gonorrhea?
A: An incurable romantic!
posted by Paul on 10-3-2007 at 6:33 am
There’s a new campaign here in Chicago for folks to get tested for syphilis. Apparently, transmission rates are up. Anyway, buses all over town are carrying ads that say, in really big letters, “SYPHILIS IS BACK”!
posted by Chris Weber on 10-4-2007 at 10:58 am
Great topic. mental_floss had a great article on parasites a while back (my boyfriend still talks about one of the critters), yet rare skin diseases are a no-no? Awe… c’mon, kids.
I’m glad others find these sort of posts interesting. Keep ‘em coming. They make me feel so normal ;p
posted by Trena on 10-5-2007 at 1:08 pm