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Wednesday, January 01, 2003Whatever its precise origins, syphilis reached plague proportions worldwide by the 16th century, when, Ms. Hayden writes, "each country blamed its neighbor for the malevolent import," the Russians calling it the Polish sickness, the Germans cursing it as the Spanish itch. The name syphilis comes from a poem written by the physician Girolamo Fracastoro in 1530, about a shepherd named Syphilus who offended the god Apollo and was punished with the world's first case of the pox. The disease remained a pox on many houses for centuries to come, as it spread from person to person by sexual contact or other exposure to ulcerating sores, or congenitally, from mother to child. Treatments, like the consumption of high doses of mercury, were harsh, dangerous and only minimally effective. By the turn of the 20th century, perhaps 15 percent of the adult population in major cities like Paris and London had syphilis, though often the diagnosis was spoken of in the most euphemistic and obfuscatory terms. The 16th century anatomist, Gabriele Falloppio described how syphilis may have been introduced to Europe. It was biowarfare. This is his description of the actions of a group of Spaniards holed up in a fortess in Naples while fighting the French army of Charles VIII in 1494 (his father was in the same fortress), as quoted in Combat Surgeons by John Laffin: ...under the pretext that food was short, they expelled from the fortress the whores and women, especially the attractive ones whom they knew were infected with the disease. The French, seized with compassion for the women and attracted by their beauty, gave them asylum. And, presumably, some loving attention. The tides of war turned when others joined the fight, and a month later the French and their allies beat a retreat, carrying syphillis out of Italy to the rest of Europe. At first, syphilis causes a painful ulcer at the site of infection, either in the vagina or the penis, but then that resolves and it manifests itself as a generalized rash, hence its name “The Great Pox.” Then, it gets tricky and hides in other parts of the body, quietly wreaking havoc. In the brain, it can cause dementia, in the aorta, an aneurysm, and in the heart, it can destroy the valves and cause narrowing of the coronary arteries. Understandably, it can be confused with many other diseases, hence its other name, “The Great Imitator.” The problem is, since its manifestations are so protean, many other diseases can be confused with it as well, making it all the more harder to accurately blame it for the erratic behavior of so many historical personages. posted by Sydney on 1/01/2003 10:23:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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