Syphilis

• Syphilis is very common
• Many people with an STD don't know they have them
• Left untreated, STD's can cause serious health problems
• All STD's are treatable (including HIV), and many are curable
• STD's

  • syphilis
  • chlamydia
  • gonorrhea
  • Hep B
  • Hep A
  • Hep C
  • herpes 1 and 2
  • HIV/AIDS
  • HPV
  • trichomoniasis
• Spice trade


  • Christopher Columbus routes from Spain to the New World
  • He arrives in the West Indies not the East Indies
  • Plant exchange between the old and new world
• Old world native plants


  • citrus
  • apple
  • banana
  • mango
  • onion
  • coffee
  • wheat
  • rice
• New world native plants


  • maize
  • tomato
  • potato
  • vanilla
  • para
  • cacao
  • tobacco
• Diseases moved from the old world to the new world during colonial times, including smallpox, measles, chicken pox, malaria, yellow fever, dengue, influenza, and the common cold
• Syphilis moved from the new world to the old world
• Syphilis


  Also known as the Great Pox, Lues, Syph, and the Pox
• The causative agent of syphilis is the bacterium Treponema pallidum, a spirochete bacterium
• There is no known animal reservoir for syphilis other than humans
• Four stages of syphilis


  1. Primary stage

  2. Secondary stage

  3. Tertiary stage

  4. Latent stage
• Primary stage of syphilis


  • Small sore called chancre appears on the genitals and the mouth
  • Bacterium acquired via direct sexual contact with infectious lesions of a person with syphilis
  • Chancre is firm, painless skin ulceration localized at the point of initial exposure to the spirochete, often on the penis, vagina, rectum, or lip
  • Chancre may persist for 4 - 6 weeks and usually heals spontaneously
• Secondary stage of syphilis


  • Sore throat, weight loss, skin rashes, joint pain, fever, and fatigue
  • Occurs ~1 - 6 months after the primary infection
  • Symmetrical reddish-pink non-itchy rash on the body trunk and extremities
  • In moist areas of the body, the rash becomes flat broad whitish lesions known as "condylomata lata"
  • All of these lesions are infectious and harbor active spirochete bacteria
• Tertiary stage of syphilis


  • Memory loss, deafness, paralysis, and neurological problems
  • Enlarged lymph nodes
  • Gummatous (granulomatous) syphilis
  • Neurosyphilis (brain and spinal cord damage)
  • Cardiovascular syphilis (aortic aneurysms)
• Latent stage of syphilis


  • Bacteria remains hidden and the affected person does not experience any symptom
• Hutchinson's triad


  • Hutchinson's teeth
  • Interstitial keratitis
  • 8th nerve deafness
• Other manifestations of syphilis

  • Saddle nose
  • Frontal bossing
  • Cluttons joint (painless swelling of joint)
• Christopher Columbus and his men return from first voyage to the New World


  1493
• France under King Charles VIII army marches across Italy and takes Naples


  1494
• France under King Charles VIII retreats across Italy and is decisively defeated


  1495
• Mysterious affliction reported in France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and Greece


  1495 - 1496
• Syphilis


  Name coined by the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro from Verona, Italy, in his epic poem "Syphilis Sive Morbus Gallicus"
• Fracastoro described the disease syphilis and blamed it on introduction to Naples by soldiers in the army of King Charles VIII of France
• Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the English throne, aided James IV of Scotland to invade England


  1496
• Grandgore Act - islands near Edinburgh, Scotland, used as quarantine islands for people suffering from the disease


  September 1497
• Xenophobic names for syphilis

  • Great Pox
  • French disease
  • Italian disease
  • Spanish disease
  • Polish disease
  • Christian disease
  • British disease
• Great "syphilitics" of history

  • Christopher Columbus
  • Pope Alexander VI Borges family
  • Ivan the Terrible Russian Prince
  • Henry VIII of England
  • Hernan Cortes Spanish Explorer
  • Francis I of France
  • Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark explorers
  • Abraham Lincoln
• Theories of the origin of syphilis

  • Columbian (New World) Theory
  • Old World Theory
• Recent genetic evidence suggests that all syphilis in Europe had a common origin around 1500
• Syphilis symptoms were described by Hippocrates in classical Greece in its venereal/tertiary form
• Suspected syphilis findings for Europe include a 13-14th century Augustinian friars in the northeastern English port city of Kingston upon the Hull River, and skeletons from Pompeii demonstrating symptoms of congenital syphilis
• Some suggest the Viking contact with the New World around 700 - 800 BC brought back syphilis to Europe
• Gonorrhea was recognized as a venereal disease in the 13th and 14th centuries
• In 1496, Joseph Gunpeck clearly described mixed infections of syphilis and gonorrhea
• In 1530, Paracelsus declared gonorrhea to be an early stage of syphilis
• In 1767, John Hunter inoculated himself with pus from a patient with gonorrhea and died of syphilitic heart disease in 1793
• In 1793, Benjamin Bell experimented on himself and medical students and demonstrated that syphilis and gonorrhea were distinct