Actually the America's had Syphilis before Columbus, also.
The anthropologists found syphilitic leisons on some of the American
Indian long bones too.
So, there is no direct tie to Columbus and his crew transporting the
disease either way across the Atlantic.
But, I have no doubt that they did their part to help with the
transmission.
(If you have seen some of the latest Anthropological information it seems
trade across the Atlantic predates much recorded history. An egyptian
mummy was analyzed and they found cocain and tobacco in her preserved
tissues which sent the anthropological community into a tail spin, they
had previously thought cocain and tobacco to have been unknown in that
region by a couple of thousand years. If they traded botanicals, they
traded pathogens.)
It is one of 'my' theories that Lyme disease is a natural vaccination to
prevent syphilis transmission. Same family of critters, lyme disease
would have been transmitted early, in childhood where syphilis most
likely would be transmitted after puberty. Lyme is far less destructive
(only debilitating when someone is under a lot of stress) and it does not
cause tissue changes in itself.
Warmly, Maria
Message: 14
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 12:30:56 +0100
From: Joy Lucas
Subject: Re: origin of Syphilis
This makes for some interesting reading
http://www.archaeology.org/9701/newsbri ... hilis.html
best, Joy
on 12/4/04 10:38 AM, Finrod at
finrod@webstar.co.uk wrote:
Further to comments recently made about the origins of this horrible
disease, in the grave yard of a church in Essex England, the bones of a
woman were dug up and dated to 1260 AD.
She had all the marks of syphilis on her bones.
This was pre Columbus of course.
I guess the disease was taken by the European sailors to the Americas!
Rgds
Soroush