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Columbus’ Sailors Culprit for Syphilis Epidemic
What do Howard Hughes, Ivan the Terrible, Hitler, and Oscar Wilde have in common? Each is suspected of suffering from the infamous venereal disease syphilis. They all had some of the symptoms, most often insanity, or documentation of treatment, such as mercury in the blood, and all led particularly “active” lifestyles. And now geneticists have finally solved the mystery of where syphilis originated by comparing its genes with those of its closely related bacteria.
For the past 40 years, there have been three theories floating around as to how and when syphilis made its first appearance in Europe. The first theory, called the Columbian Theory, proposes that Columbus and his crew (along with other Spanish and Portuguese explorers) contracted syphilis from the Native Americans in the New World, and then brought it back with them to Europe. This seems to fit with some evidence, as the first big outbreak was in Naples in 1495, and many have tied the appearance of this new disease in Europe to the return of the Portuguese and Spanish explorers.
The second theory argues the opposite. Appropriately called the Pre-Columbian Theory, supporters of this argument propose that syphilis was present in Europe and the Middle East for thousands of years, it’s just that everyone called it something else: leprosy. Both leprosy and syphilis cause unsightly skin sores that could have been easily confused. But as the study of medicine advanced, doctors began to realize that leprosy and syphilis were distinct, hence the sudden appearance of syphilis on the medical radar in the late 1400s. There is some support for this theory as well, as many Biblical and Classical accounts of leprosy describe symptoms that are closer to syphilis. Roman crusaders also refer to using a mercury-based ointment for treating leprosy – though mercury is only an appropriate treatment for syphilis.
Not to be outdone, a third theory that brings together the previous two has also been developed. Called the Combination Theory, this one argues that the bacteria that causes syphilis is very old, originating in the Paleolithic (several hundred thousand years ago), and traveled into the New World with the first human groups, eventually developing into the sexually transmitted disease we all know today. It was thus picked up by Columbus and his crew in the late 15th century and transported back to Europe. Meanwhile, a different strain of the bacteria stayed in the Old World, manifesting itself in Africa as the skin disease ‘yaws.’
All these theories rely on historical and anthropological evidence (syphilis distorts bones in characteristic ways), and no one had yet taken a look at origins of syphilis from a genetics perspective. So Kristen Harper and her team at Emory University decided to take on that task. In January 15, 2008 issue of PLOS: Neglected Tropical Diseases, Harper and her colleagues looked at the group bacteria that causes syphilis, yaws and several other skin diseases, a genus called Treponesmatoses
The team sequenced 26 species of bacteria. After studying genetic differences in these strains and compiling a tree of their ages and relatedness, it would appear that the Combination Theory is the most spot-on of the three choices. Harper and her team discovered that the strain of bacteria we know as syphilis does trace back to the New World, while weaker, non-sexually transmitted strains are much older and trace back to the Old World.
So, it would seem that we can finally confirm that it wasn’t just the avocados and pineapples that made their way back from the New World after Columbus’ voyage. Though we can say they are decidedly the more pleasant cargo.
