Myths and Realities of Caribbean History

Myth 9. The Spanish Introduced Syphilis into the Caribbean and the New World

Myth 9 The Spanish Introduced Syphilis into the Caribbean and the New World Spanish colonizers have been justifiably vilified for their atrocities against the Taínos and for introducing a host of diseases to the New World. However, one disease that was already present in the New World prior to European contact was syphilis.  It is generally accepted that by far the most prevalent cause of Amerindian mortality in the New World were European-introduced diseases such as smallpox , scarlet fever, measles, influenza, typhoid fever, cholera, yellow fever, dengue fever, and amoebic dysentery (Crosby 1986; Bryan 1992). Syphilis, a contagious sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochete Treponema pallidum (Figure 9.1),has been cited as yet another disease introduced to the New World by the Spanish colonizers (Desowitz 1997; McGregor 2007). This argument is based on the premise that syphilis was an old European disease that had been improperly diagnosed as leprosy prior to 1500 (Desowitz 1997; McGregor 2007). But was syphilis really introduced into the New World by the Spanish or was this virulent disease strain already present in the Americas before Christopher Columbus’s arrival? Ancient and Medieval Sources Ancient and medieval sources have long been cited as evidence for syphilis in Europe before Columbus, but none of the descriptions by Greek and Roman authors was specific enough to be irrefutable. Returning crusaders brought “Saracen ointment” containing mercury for treating “lepers,” an appropriate medication for syphilis but not for leprosy. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century A.D. references to “venereal leprosy” may also indicate syphilis because leprosy is not sexually transmitted (Rose 1997). However, for several years, a number of 112 / Myth 9 archaeologists, historians, and paleopathologists have argued that syphilis was in fact in the Americas prior to the advent of the Spanish colonizers. Immediately after Columbus returned from his first voyage, a syphilis epidemic broke out in the Mediterranean, which suggests that syphilis was already present in the New World before then (Sauer 1966). Physicians, surgeons, and laymen of the Old World who wrote about syphilis in the sixteenth century recorded, with few exceptions, that it was a new malady (Figure 9.2) (Crosby 2003). Figure 9.1. Image of spiral-shaped organism that causes syphilis. Spanish Introduced Syphilis / 113 Complexity of the Issues But the issues relating to venereal syphilis in the New World are not as simple as they appear.Archaeologists and paleopathologists have examined thousands of skeletons from archaeological sites throughout North America, searching for definitive proof of pre-Columbian treponemal disease that would support the notion that the New World, not the Old, was the origin of this disease. Their endeavors have yielded a body of information that is both abundant and highly suggestive (Powell and Cook 2005). Since the 1940s, however, worldwide clinical and epidemiological studies of nonvenereal forms of treponemal disease that exist today alongside venereal syphilis have teased out several distinctions in key aspects of their epidemiology, pathology, immunology, and microbiology (Powell and Cook 2005). The bacterial pathogens associated with various diseases at first appeared to be identical to one another based on their morphological characteristics (Schell and Musher 1983), but recent techniques of microbial DNA analysis (Cameron et al. 1999; Centurion-Lara et al. 2000) have now seriously challenged the identification of all precolonial skeleFigure 9.2.The preparation and use of guaiacum in the treatment of syphilis. From an engraving by Jan van der Straet.This illustration of a sickroom interior shows the stages in the preparation of an infusion for the treatment of the disease. (Impression in the Wellcome Library of the History of Medicine.) 114 / Myth 9 tons in the New World of treponemal origin as relating to venereal syphilis (Powell and Cook 2005). It is clear that treponemal disease has been present in various forms in the New World before European contact and these forms include at least four known subspecies of treponemal diseases: T. palladium palladium , which causes syphilis; T. pallidum pertenue, which causes yaws; T. palladium carateum, which causes pinta; and T.palladium endemicum, which causes bejel. Moreover, the debate about the geographic origins of syphilis is far from over. Skeletal remains with evidence of the disease have come from medieval England (Hunnius et al. 2005), third- to fifth-century France and ancient Greek sites at Metaponto in Italy. A possible case from Iron Age southern Africa has also been cited (Steyn and Henneberg 1995). Despite this, the weight of...