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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: 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.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(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