The English, Germans and Italians called it the French disease. Polish people dubbed it the German disease, while Russians blamed it on Poles. In France, it was named the \u201cNeapolitan disease\u201d after the French army got infected during its invasion of Naples, Italy, in the first documented syphilis epidemic. <\/p>\n
The origins of syphilis \u2014 a sexually transmitted infection that devastated 15th century Europe and is still prevalent today \u2014 have remained murky, difficult to study and the subject of some debate. <\/p>\n
One long-standing theory is that the disease emerged in the Americas and migrated to Europe after the expeditions led by Christopher Columbus returned from the New World, but a new study suggests the true story is more complicated.<\/strong> <\/p>\n Genetic information about ancient pathogens can be preserved in bones, dental plaque, mummified bodies and historical medical specimens, extracted and studied \u2014 a field known as paleopathology. <\/p>\n Research published Wednesday in the journal Nature used paleopathology techniques on 2,000-year-old bones unearthed in Brazil in an attempt to shed more light on when and where syphilis originated. The study resulted in scientists recovering the earliest known genomic evidence of Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis and two other related diseases, which is reliably dated to long before the first trans-Atlantic contacts. <\/p>\n \u201cThis study is incredibly exciting because it is the first truly ancient treponemal DNA that has been recovered from archaeological human remains that are more than a few hundred years old,\u201d said Brenda J. Baker, a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University, who wasn\u2019t involved with the study.<\/strong> <\/p>\n Without treatment, syphilis can cause physical disfigurement, blindness and mental impairment. As a sexually transmitted disease, it has long carried a stigma \u2014 hence the past attempts by different populations to blame outbreaks on neighboring groups or countries. <\/p>\n It\u2019s particularly complex to study both the disease and the pathogen responsible for it, said Molly Zuckerman, a professor and codirector of the Bioarchaeology Laboratories, New and Old World, at Mississippi State University, who wasn\u2019t involved in the research. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was only in 2017 that researchers were able to culture T. p pallidum for the first time, even though we\u2019ve known it\u2019s the cause of syphilis for over one hundred years,\u201d Zuckerman said in an email. \u201cIt\u2019s still costly and cumbersome to study in the lab. There are many reasons that, despite our best efforts, it\u2019s one of the least well understood common bacterial infections.\u201d <\/p>\n The timing and sudden onset of the first documented syphilis epidemic in the late 15th century is what led many historians to conclude that it arrived in Europe after the Columbus expeditions. Others believe T. pallidum bacteria always had a global distribution but perhaps grew in virulence after initially manifesting as a mild disease. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is very clear that Europeans took a number of diseases (including smallpox) to the New World, decimating the native populations, so the hypothesis that the New World \u2018gave syphilis to Europe\u2019 was attractive to some,\u201d noted Sheila A. Lukehart, professor emeritus in the department of medicine, infectious disease and global health at the University of Washington, who didn\u2019t take part in the study. <\/p>\n A complex disease caused by a complex bacterium<\/h3>\n