When a mysterious plague of rotting flesh broke out in Europe in 1495, two years after Christopher Columbus returned from the Americas, his crew became suspicious.
Syphilis soon spread throughout the Continent and beyond, but its origin continued to be hotly debated, with some historians claiming it was actually homegrown.
Now, scientists have performed genetic tests on the bones of infected people from Chile, Peru, Mexico and Argentina, who lived between the 13th and 15th centuries and died before Columbus arrived.
They found that ancestral forms of syphilis were present in the New World before they were discovered by Europeans, suggesting that the bacterium did indeed encounter the explorers.
Historical records show that Columbus’s crew “took” native women, and contracted sexually transmitted diseases.
Columbus lands in the Americas, 1800 painting by Frederick Kemmelmeyer – Heritage via Getty
“The data clearly support a root in the Americas for syphilis and its known relatives, and their introduction to Europe from the end of the 15th century is very consistent with the data,” said Kirsten Bos, leader of the molecular paleopathology group at the Max Planck Institute. of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
“Although Native American groups carried the earliest forms of these diseases, Europeans were instrumental in spreading them throughout the world.”
The French disease
Syphilis was first recorded in French soldiers fighting for Charles VIII in Italy. Called “the great pox” or “the plague of France,” it killed five million in Europe in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
The sexually transmitted disease begins with painless sores on the genitals, before bringing on a rash, flu-like fatigue, headaches and eventually foul-smelling pustules.
Joseph Grunpeck, the German doctor who diagnosed the disease, described it as “so bad, that until now, nothing more bad or disgusting has ever been known in this world”.
In 1519, Ulrich von Hutten, a German poet and scholar, said that “boils stand out like acorns” and emit a “foul, foul-smelling matter”.
Europeans took many diseases to the Americas that were previously unknown – but no, new research suggests more – syphilis – GraphicaArtis via Getty
Syphilis can remain dormant for years, which means that most of the time people do not realize they are infected and pass it on to their loved ones. In the final stages, the skin begins to rot and disintegrate and victims succumb to heart failure or brain damage.
The disease was largely eradicated in the West by the mid-20th century, but has recently resurfaced. By 2022, syphilis cases in the UK will reach their highest level since 1948.
The natives were frustrated
Many infectious diseases traveled westward across the Atlantic during colonial rule and brought devastating consequences to the native population.
Syphilis is one of the few that may go back, although the “Columbian hypothesis” also has its critics.
The disease leaves traces of sores on the bones and teeth, and some archaeologists have pointed out that these can be found in European fossils that date back to long before the voyage of Columbus.
Other diseases can leave similar marks, so researchers began examining DNA from bacteria left in the bones of people with the disease in the Americas.
“We have known for a while that diseases like syphilis have been occurring in the Americas for a thousand years, but because of the lesions alone it is impossible to fully detect the disease,” said Dr. Casey Kirkpatrick, a clinical pathologist at the Max Planck Institute.
The team was able to recover and analyze the five ancient genomes of the syphilis “family of diseases”, in order to determine the relationship between the extinct forms and the problems circulating today.
They found lines that preceded European strains and contributed to the outbreak of syphilis there in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Now the team hopes that similar studies can be done on European bones from before the outbreak, to find out which diseases were already circulating.
“The search will continue to explain these early species, and ancient DNA will be an important source,” said Dr. Johannes Krause, director of the department of archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute.
“Who knows what old age-related diseases were doing all over the world in humans or other animals before the syphilis family appeared.”
The study was published in the journal Nature.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Source link
