from the science-debunks-finger-pointing dept.
El Reg reports
The skeleton of a six-year-old infant unearthed in Austria is challenging the theory that syphilis was imported into Europe from the New World by the ship's crew of Christopher Columbus.
The well-preserved remains (above) were found in a cemetery in St. Pölten, some 65km west of Vienna, by a team from the city's Medical University. Several of the child's teeth display "lesions suggestive of or consistent with congenital syphilis", according to the research published in Anthropologischer Anzeiger.
These include "mulberry molar" and "Hutchinson's teeth". The former is a molar with "alternating nonanatomic depressions and rounded enamel nodules on its crown surface". The latter is where "permanent incisors have a screwdriver-like shape, sometimes associated with notching of the incisal edges".
Critically, carbon dating aged the skeleton to sometime between 1390 and 1440 AD, with a "mean" of 1415 AD. Since Columbus didn't sail off to the New World until 1492, "syphilis was probably not introduced to Europe by Columbus' returning crew", the researchers conclude. The first recorded outbreak of the disease in Europe was in Naples in 1494 or 1495. If the Treponema pallidum bacteria had already been present in the Old World for many years, then this event may ultimately have been attributed to Columbus's men simply because of a co-incidence of date. (They returned from their first voyage in 1493.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @05:20PM
The Europeans' biggest military weapon against Native Americans was spreading disease, either by accident or on purpose.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday November 25 2015, @05:58PM
Right, and for a long time scientists thought that wasn't a 1 way street, that some diseases came from the Americas to europe, but they weren't as virulent as, say, smallpox or measles with syphilis being the most notable example.
This paper contests that.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday November 25 2015, @06:17PM
Europeans succeeded in colonizing America because of the effectiveness of accidental transmission (which happened before colonization). But it was never weaponized, and there is no evidence that a single Indian was ever intentionality infected.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday November 25 2015, @07:24PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 25 2015, @07:49PM
Respect to Armelagos and his team for this statement: ""The origin of syphilis is a fascinating, compelling question," Zuckerman says. "The current evidence is pretty definitive, but we shouldn't close the book and say we're done with the subject. The great thing about science is constantly being able to understand things in a new light.""
I gotta confess, I'm not intimately familiar with syphilis, or any other venereal diseases. When I read the title of this submission, I thought something like, "That's just stupid, Mediterranean sheep herders have been poking their sheep for forever, and spreading syphilis around." DERP-A-DERP - the article is about syphilis, not gonorrhea.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday November 25 2015, @08:11PM
Yes, but they knew so little about diseases back then, they did not actually get it right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Fort_Pitt#Biological_Warfare_was_Ineffective [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @11:13PM
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday November 25 2015, @06:09PM
Europe Didn't Get Syphilis From The New World
Unless, of course, they did. Even if syphilis (or some closely related disease which has similar symptoms) were around in Europe before Columbus, it doesn't mean the epidemic form of syphilis, which appeared in the literature in 1494-1495) was. And I wouldn't embrace the results from one skeleton when we have contrary evidence [sciencedaily.com] as well.
For me, the key problem with asserting that syphilis was an existing disease, which mutated, is that it started precisely where you'd expect a New World disease to start, in a Spanish-controlled sea-based trade hub (Naples was a dependency of the Spanish Empire in 1494).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @08:10PM
The conclusion that if it was found in the early 1400 that it didn't come from the new world is also false. Remember people Vikings came and went first. Many many years before 1400.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday November 25 2015, @06:20PM
Is one year even enough time for Syphilis to go from one person to epidemic levels?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Wednesday November 25 2015, @06:56PM
What if the Vikings brought it to Europe some centuries earlier?
Still, Austra is nowhere near any harbors, so it's not a very likely route anyway.
I assume there's no evidence like this from ancient American skeletons? If this is the oldest evidence worldwide then it's more logical to assume an east to west route.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday November 25 2015, @07:15PM
Perhaps the Italians during the Renaissance were a lot more liberated sexually than we might imagine.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday November 25 2015, @07:22PM
Yes, given that infection can happen from as few as 57 organisms, there's a relatively high risk of infection from any contact, and that infection can be silent or have very delayed initial symptoms. So it takes very little contact to infect and it can spread far and wide before symptoms frighten people off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis#Signs_and_symptoms [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis#Transmission [wikipedia.org]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @06:52PM
They were over there prior to columbus.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday November 25 2015, @07:25PM
In which case it would have spread from north to south, instead of the reverse.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday November 25 2015, @08:54PM
Was Syphillis present in the Americas prior to Columbus? What about prior to the Vikings?
Reports are that there are lots of skeletons in Central America thanks to religion, so this should be checkable.
If Syphillis wasn't present in the Americas, then it was another Euro-Asian import. If it was present on both continents prior to recorded contact, then a mutated strain should be assumed as the cause of epidemic Syphillis. Ditto if it wasn't present in the pre-contact Americas. Only if it wasn't present in Euro-Asia prior to contacts should the origin site be presumed to be the Americas. But do note that I said recorded contact. There were probably occasional contacts long before any recorded contacts. E.g., there's evidence that the Chinese influenced pre-columbian Peru. It's not proof, but it's plausible. There are arguments that the Phoenicians circumnavigated the world (following coastlines). I don't find them convincing, or even extremely plausible, but plausible. And one wouldn't expect any records of one-way trips (due to, e.g., unexpected storms).
That said, it's clear that e.g., measles and smallpox didn't make the trip. But those are more blatant.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday November 25 2015, @09:08PM
Was Syphillis present in the Americas prior to Columbus? What about prior to the Vikings?
The answer is yes. Syphilis came from yaws [wikipedia.org], which was present in both New and Old World. According to Wikipedia, there are Homo Erectus skeletons with yaws-like damage, meaning it's one of the very few diseases (leprosy being another) which have been with us so long that it predates our own species. As to New World evidence for syphilis, we have this [archaeology.org]:
Using these criteria, they examined 687 skeletons from archaeological sites in the United States and Ecuador ranging in age from 400 to 6,000 years. Populations to the south (New Mexico, Florida, and Ecuador) proved to have syphilis, while those to the north (Ohio, Illinois, and Virginia) had yaws. By contrast, examination of 1,000 Old World skeletons dated to before contact with the New World revealed no cases of syphilis. This suggests that syphilis was first present in the New World and was later brought to the Old World. Furthermore, the Rothschilds found that the earliest yaws cases in the New World collections were at least 6,000 years old, while the first syphilis cases were at least 800 years old and perhaps more than 1,600 years old. This suggests that syphilis may be a New World mutation of yaws, which has a worldwide distribution. The occurrence of the same mutation giving rise to syphilis independently in the New and Old worlds seems unlikely.
and
Syphilis, it seems, developed in the New World from yaws, perhaps 1,600 years ago, and was waiting for Columbus and his crew. The Rothschilds are now examining skeletal collections from the Bahamas to look for evidence of syphilis nearer to Columbus' landfall.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday November 25 2015, @09:18PM
A skeleton recovered in the ruins of Pompeii later analyzed by a specialist also showed the telltale signs of advanced syphilis. I suspect that more will be revealed on this subject in coming years.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 25 2015, @10:37PM
don't look at me