Syphilis started in the caribbean?

Question

I heard that Syphilis came from the caribbean. And it did not exist in europe till it was brought back from the "new world".
Is that true?
How did it get created in the caribbean?

Answer 1

no, sorry indian protectors, but syphilis did not exist in europe intil the new world explorers brought it back. the american indians were riddled with the disease

http://www.archaeology.org/9701/newsbriefs/syphilis.html

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18693662.html

Answer 2

Syphilis , contagious sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochete Treponema pallidum (described by Fritz Schaudinn and Erich Hoffmann in 1905). Although some medical historians believe that syphilis first appeared in Spain among sailors who had returned from the New World in 1493, others have concluded from archaeological evidence that syphilis probably originated in the Old World but may have been confused with leprosy. It was not widely recognized until an epidemic in Europe at the end of the 15th cent.

Transmission

The most prevalent mode of transmission is by sexual contact; infection by other means is possible, but its occurrence depends upon an open wound or lesion to permit invasion of the organisms. A person with syphilitic sores has an increased chance of contracting AIDS from an infected partner. An infected mother can transmit the disease to her fetus; 25% of such pregnancies end in stillbirth or death of the infant, and another 40% to 70% will result in a baby with congenital syphilis, which, if untreated, can progress to late-stage syphilis and cause serious damage to the brain and other organs.

Symptoms

The development of syphilis occurs in four stages. The primary stage is the appearance of a painless chancre at the site of infection (often internal) about 10 days to 3 months after contact. There are no other symptoms, and the chancre disappears with or without treatment.

The secondary stage usually begins 3 to 6 weeks after the chancre with a rash over all or part of the body. Active bacteria are present in the sores of the rash. Headache, fever, fatigue, sore throat, patchy hair loss, and enlarged lymph nodes may be present. The signs of the secondary stage will disappear with or without treatment, but may reappear over the next 1 to 2 years.

Untreated syphilis then goes into a noncontagious latent period. Some people will have no more symptoms, but about one third will progress to tertiary syphilis, with widespread damage to the heart, brain, eyes, nervous system, bones, and joints. Late syphilis can result in mental illness, blindness, severe damage to the heart and aorta, and death.

Neurosyphilis, infection of the nervous system, frequently occurs in the early stages in untreated patients. There may be no symptoms, mild headache, or severe consequences such as seizures and stroke. Its treatment and course are complicated by concomitant HIV infection.

Diagnosis and Treatment

Diagnosis is made by symptoms, blood tests (required by many states before issuing marriage licenses), and microscopic identification of the bacterium. Until the advent of penicillin in the 1940s, treatment for syphilis was with mercury, arsenic, and bismuth. Penicillin is the antibiotic of choice for all stages of syphilis treatment, but penicillin-resistant organisms have complicated treatment of the disease. Even late-stage syphilis can be cured, but damage that has already occurred cannot be reversed. Despite available treatment, the incidence of syphilis in the United States was on the rise until 1990. Since then it has declined sharply, from 20 to just 2.6 cases per 100,000 people from 1990 to 1998. Federal health experts have attributed the decline to prevention efforts, including those intended to curtail the spread of AIDS.

hope this may help u..

thanks!

Answer 3

That is not true; that disease existed in Europe and Asia for centuries before Columbus sailed into the area.

Answer 4

There have been three theories on the origin of syphilis which formed an ongoing debate in anthropological and historical fields.

The pre-Columbian theory holds that syphilis symptoms are described by Hippocrates in Classical Greece in its venereal/tertiary form. There are other suspected syphilis findings for pre-contact Europe, including at a 13–14th century Augustinian friary in the northeastern English port of Kingston upon Hull. This city's maritime history is thought to have been a key factor in the transmission of syphilis, through its connections with the Scandinavian traders and raiders known as the Vikings.[1] Carbon dated skeletons of monks who lived in the friary showed bone lesions typical of venereal syphilis. The find in Hull disputes the assertion that syphilis came from the New World through contact of Christopher Columbus's crew with American natives,[2] although others counter that a more virulent strain was re-introduced from the New World to Europe through Viking contact.[1] Skeletons in pre-Columbus Pompeii demonstrating symptoms of congenital syphilis have also been found,[citation needed] although the interpretation of the evidence has been disputed.[3]

The Columbian Exchange theory holds that syphilis was a New World disease brought back by Columbus. Supporters of the Columbian theory find syphilis lesions on pre-contact Native Americans and cite documentary evidence linking crewmen of Columbus's voyages to the Naples outbreak of the 1490s.[4]

Evidence for the pre-Columbian and Columbian Exchange theories are each disputed by the opposing school of thought, but historian Alfred Crosby suggests both are correct in a combination theory.

Crosby's argument is built on the similarities of the species of bacteria which cause yaws and syphilis. The bacteria that causes syphilis belongs to the same phylogenetic family as the bacteria which cause yaws and several other diseases. Despite a tradition of assigning yaws's homeland to sub-Saharan Africa, Crosby notes that there is no unequivocal evidence of any related disease being present in pre-Columbian Europe, Africa, or Asia, while there is indisputable evidence of syphilis' presence in the pre-Columbian Americas. Conceding this point, Crosby writes, "It is not impossible that the organisms causing treponematosis arrived from America in the 1490s...and evolved into both venereal and non-venereal syphilis and yaws."[5]

However, Crosby considers it somewhat more likely that a highly contagious ancestral species of bacteria moved with early human ancestors across the land bridge of the Bering Straits many thousands of years ago without dying out in the original source population. He hypothesizes that "the differing ecological conditions produced different types of treponematosis and, in time, closely related but different diseases".[6]

In other words, according to Crosby, a common ancestor of the syphilis bacterium existed on both the Old and New Worlds, easily spread by poor hygiene, and through the process of divergent evolution, became at least four diseases. A weak, non-syphilitic bacteria survived in the Old World to eventually give rise to yaws or bejel, while a New World version evolved into the milder pinta and the more aggressive syphilis.

Going further than Crosby in arguing for worldwide incidence of syphilis prior to Columbus, Douglas Owsley, the famed physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institute, has written that many medieval European cases of leprosy, colloquially called "lepra," were actually cases of syphilis. Although folklore claimed that syphilis was unknown in Europe until the return of the diseased sailors of the Columbian voyages,

“ . . . syphilis probably cannot be "blamed"—as it often is—on any geographical area or specific race. The evidence suggests that the disease existed in both hemispheres from prehistoric times. It is only coincidental with the Columbus expeditions that the syphilis previously thought of as "lepra" flared into virulence at the end of the fifteenth century.[7] ”

Owsley noted that a Chinese medical case recorded in 2637 B.C.E. seems to be describing a case of syphilis, and that a European writer who recorded an outbreak of "lepra" in 1303 C.E. is clearly describing syphilis.[7