The Renaissance, which lasted from 1300 to 1600, was a period marked by the revival of
learning about Ancient Greece and Rome, and so was aptly named.
The word “renaissance” even means “rebirth.”
It was a time when art, philosophy, music and radical thought all abounded.
The whole world was turning its eye to beauty as inventions like the printing press and
telescope proved to be revolutionary.
But in the late 1400s, the music stopped for a time.
A new disease, sometimes called the grande verole or great pox by the French -- what
we now call syphilis -- was a malady the likes of which Italians, and later the world, had
never seen, and more importantly, had no immunity towards.
What started with genital ulcers led to fever, a rash and body aches.
Months later, painful and foul-smelling sores began appearing on people’s bodies and green
acorn-like boils protruded from their skin.
Their bodies were covered in scabs and swollen with tubercles, which started off as bright
red and then progressed into a repulsive black color.
Sores became ulcers that ate into their bones, destroying their noses, lips and eyes, sometimes
extending to the throat.
The flesh falling off of sufferers’ faces made them unrecognizable.
What we in modern times treat as and understand to be a fairly benign sexually transmitted
disease caused a deadly epidemic in the middle of the Renaissance that killed up to five
million people.
Evidence which includes reports from scholars at the time and woodcut drawings indicate
that this syphilis was more virulent than what we see today -- a much more contagious,
deadly strain that killed people at a quicker rate.
And while the virus that is causing today’s coronavirus pandemic and the one that caused
the syphilis epidemic aren’t related, it seems likely that now, more than ever, the
entire world can empathize with that fear of the unknown that people in the Renaissance
faced just as we do today, and perhaps we can even learn something from how humanity
dealt with the epidemic in the past.
German humanist Joseph Grunpeck who eventually fell prey to the syphilis outbreak called
it “so cruel, so distressing, so appalling that until now nothing more terrible or disgusting
has ever been known on this earth," and Albrecht Dürer, who later etched artistic woodcut
portrayals of sufferers, wrote "God save me from the French disease.
I know of nothing of which I am so afraid … Nearly every man has it and it eats up
so many that they die."
Syphilis didn’t have a proper name when it struck, and because it was the first disease
to be discovered after the printing press was invented, news of it was spreading almost
as quickly as the disease itself.
It was also the first sexually transmitted disease to be recognized as such, making it
one of the first times morality around sex and its implications had ever been brought
into the discussion surrounding disease.
The trajectory of its spread across Europe and then globally looked like this: By late
1495, it had spread throughout France, Switzerland and Germany and reached England and Scotland
in 1497, according to the Journal of Military and Veterans’ Health.
Scandinavia, Britain, Hungary, Greece, Poland and Russia were all hit by 1500.
Just 20 years later, it expanded its global grip and touched Africa, China, Japan and
Oceania.
Syphilis, for the most part, is not a death sentence in contemporary times.
Thankfully its rate of spreading looks nothing like what Italy saw at the end of the 15th
century and doesn’t turn people into zombies anymore.
While transmitted through sexual contact, it’s also spread skin-to-skin through contact
with the sores it causes.
It has three phases.
Primary syphilis, the first of these, is when a single sore, or a canker, will appear, usually
about three weeks after an initial infection.
Secondary syphilis occurs two to eight weeks after the primary phase, when a non-itchy
rash might appear, coupled with coarse, reddish-brown spots on the soles of the feet and on the
palms of the hands.
In some cases though, the rash can be so subtle that it goes completely unnoticed.
The secondary phase could also be accompanied by fever and swollen lymphs, among other flu-like
symptoms.
If left untreated, the last stage of syphilis, or the tertiary stage, is also the most dangerous.
Maybe the most terrifying part of it though, is that it could strike 10 to 20 years later.
About 15 to 30 percent of those infected with syphilis reach this stage, which can wreak
havoc on the brain, nerves, eyes, heart, blood vessels, liver, bones and joints.
Today, early treatment usually involves the use of antibiotics, often one injection of
penicillin G.
But if it’s in its very latent stages, three doses of the shot are given in weekly intervals.
While it’s not possible to repair damage that’s already been done by the infection,
the medicine will usually stop it in its tracks.
It wasn’t until 1943 that penicillin was discovered to be an effective treatment for
syphilis, so much too late for the 15th century Italians, but more on that later.
It’s been over 500 years since the outbreak in Italy and its origin is still being debated.
Up until the early 1900’s, scholars thought it had been brought from the New World to
the Old by Christopher Columbus in his travels in 1493.
That was disputed in 1934, when a new hypothesis put forward claimed syphilis existed in Europe
even before Columbus.
This is also supported by the writings of Hippocrates, where it seems like he was describing
the symptoms of syphilis in its tertiary form.
And then some more recent studies have reverted back to the original idea that Columbus was,
in fact, responsible for bringing it over.
So, as you can see, nobody really has gotten to the bottom of this.
John Parascandola, author of Sex, Science, and Sin: A History of Syphilis in America
noted in an Atlantic article, though, that most physicians agreed it was a new disease
that hadn’t been seen before in Europe.
One theory is that it all started when the 50,000 French troops who were under the command
of King Charles VIII invaded Italy in August 1494.
Charles wanted to take over Naples in the hopes that he could use it as a staging point
to launch a Crusades and his troops may have brought the STD with them on their campaign
to prepare for a Holy War.
Findings by a team from Emory University in 2008 support the idea that it might have also
been possible that Columbus and his men brought along with them a non-venereal strain of the
infection that eventually evolved into the pathogen we’re familiar with today after
it was introduced into the Old World.
Naples was a place with a lot of brothels, so as the soldiers were fraternizing with
prostitutes and city dwellers, the deadly spiral of contagion may have begun when they
infected the prostitutes, who then passed it on to their next client and their next
client and their next... well, you get the picture.
Adding to the unfortunate, vicious cycle of infection, women and wet nurses could also
transmit it to babies while nursing.
University scholars at the time of the outbreak desperately tried to get to the bottom of
how it was spreading, eventually catching on that it was primarily spread sexually.
Although this didn’t stop other outlandish ideas from arising, some blaming the alignment
of the planets, that it might have originated from the boils of Job or that this might all
be the punishment of an angry God who was disgusted by fornication.
One of these believers was Maximilian I, Rome’s holy emperor in 1495, who thought syphilis
must have been God’s punishment for blasphemy.
An international blame game soon arose with everyone pointing the finger at nations they
believed were at fault.
The French thought Italy was most likely responsible, so they called it the ‘Neapolitan disease’,
the ‘disease of Naples’ or - clearly having a hard time deciding who the real culprit
was - the ‘Spanish disease.’
The English and Italians both blamed France, so they referred to it as the ‘French disease’,
the ‘Gallic disease’ or the ‘morbus Gallicus.’
The Turkish called it the ‘Christian disease.’
The Tahitians called it the ‘British disease.’
In India it was called the ‘Portuguese disease’, in Japan it was called the ‘Chinese pox.”
And then some just called it the ‘Persian fire,’ which we’d say is probably the
strangest of them all.
The name syphilis comes from the Latin poem Syphilis sive morbus gallicus by Girolamo
Fracastoro, which was published in 1530 and translates to “Syphilis, the French disease."
In it, the protagonist, a shepherd named Syphilus, enrages the Sun God and is punished with the
disease.
The verses where the name comes from go like this: “A shepherd once (distrust not ancient
fame) Possest these downs, and Syphilus his name.
He first wore Buboes dreadful to the sight.
First felt strange pains, and sleepless passed the night.
From him the malady received its name.
The neighbouring shepherds catch’d the spreading Flame.”
They tried treating syphilitic patients using mercury and mercury ointments, which really
only made their conditions worse, many of them dying from mercury poisoning.
Mercury treatments had the side effects of severe nerve damage, kidney failure, mouth
ulcers and loss of teeth.
To help you imagine what the heinous mercury treatment was like, S.V.
Beck, the author of “Syphilis: The Great Pox” described it like this: “A patient
undergoing the treatment was secluded in a hot, stuffy room, and rubbed vigorously with
the mercury ointment several times a day.
The massaging was done near a hot fire, which the sufferer was then left next to in order
to sweat.
This process went on for a week to a month or more, and would later be repeated if the
disease persisted.
Other toxic substances, such as vitriol and arsenic, were also employed, but their curative
effects were equally in doubt.”
Some other early treatments included blood-letting -- or the removal of blood in order to treat
disease, which has also historically been used to treat smallpox, the Bubonic plague
and epilepsy.
Laxatives and baths in wine and herbs or olive oil were also used.
Some healers also mistakenly thought sweat baths would help rid the body of syphilis-related
toxicities.
Aside from their attempts to treat patients, there were also measures local governments
took, like the Edinburgh town council that mandated their brothels to close.
By the 16th century, guaiacum, also known as holy wood, was considered a treatment.
Coming from the Dominican Republic, it ended up becoming the first drug administered to
treat syphilis in Europe.
It was soon lauded by doctors and people like Ulrich von Hutten, a German scholar who suffered
from the disease during the last 15 years of his life and eventually died from.
Guaiacum treatments came in the form of ointments and potions, but perhaps the most vile was
as an enema, which provoked diarrhea, then the patient was supposed to sit and sweat
in a hot room for 40 days and then fast.
We don’t need to tell you that this didn’t work, but healers at the time continued to
swear by it -- 21 tons of guaiacum reached Seville between 1568 and 1608, with the import
finally tapering off in the 18th century.
Fast forward to 1928, the year when Alexander Fleming, a Scottish scientist, discovered
that one of his uncovered Petri dishes close to an open window had become contaminated
with mold, and his curiosity was piqued when he realized that the bacteria near this mold
were dying.
Isolating the mold that was responsible for this, he named it Penicillium genus, and discovered
it fought all Gram-positive pathogens -- or the nasty ones responsible for diphtheria
-- an infection of the nose and throat -- gonorrhea, meningitis, pneumonia, and scarlet fever.
He also later found that it was not the mold itself but a “juice” it had produced that
destroyed the bacteria.
This “mold juice” became penicillin.
And then, as it so often does, history repeated itself.
Soldiers during World War II, began experiencing a rash, pun definitely intended, of venereal
diseases.
Nearly five percent of draftees in 1942 had syphilis, according to a medical paper published
in the journal Military Medicine.
Penicillin proved to still be effective when doctors at a US Marine Hospital on Staten
Island in New York gave it to four patients who were in the early stages of the disease,
curing them of it.
The following year, doctors published a study on how effective penicillin injections were
when they were given every few hours for eight days, according to Business Insider.
Syphilis saw a resurgence again in 2014, when the CDC reported that there were close to
20,000, which weren’t as bad as the record-high numbers seen in the 1990s, but still concerning.
As a result, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force suggested screening those who are
at higher risk every three months.
The reason for this rise in cases?
Because the disease often goes undetected -- sometimes causing no symptoms leading to
carriers spreading it without realizing…
Hmm maybe it is a bit like Coronavirus after all.
Wanna hear more about diseases?
Check out our video Is Covid 19 a modern black plague- or click this other video over here
instead!