According to this theory, both syphilis and non-venereal treponemal diseases are variants of the same infections and the clinical differences happen only because of geographic and climate variations and to the degree of cultural development of populations within disparate areas. Considered by some authors as a variant of the pre-Columbian hypothesis, it advocates that the treponemal diseases had always had a global distribution. Initially it manifested as a mild disease, eventually aggravated and grew in virulence, suffering from several mutations, at the end of the 15th century. Around 3000 BC the sexually transmitted syphilis emerged from endemic syphilis in South-Western Asia, due to lower temperatures of the post-glacial era and spread to Europe and the rest of the world. The endemic syphilis emerged from jaws by the selection of several treponemas, as a consequence of climate changes (the appearance of the arid climate) around 7000 BC. Yaws appeared as a consequence of the mutations in pinta around 10.000 BC and spread allover the world, except for the American continent which was isolated. According to this hypothesis, pinta occurred in Afro-Asian zone by the year 15.000 BC, having an animal reservoir.
In Europe, most of these conditions were mistaken for leprosy. The advocates of this hypothesis claim that not only syphilis was widely spread in both Old and New World, but also the other treponemal diseases. The nymph Ammerice counseled the inhabitants to offer Apollo further sacrifices, one of which was Syphilus himself, and also to sacrifice to Juno and Tellus, the latter offering the people the tree of Guaiac (Guaiacum officinale), a very used therapeutic medicine in times of Fracastoro. The affliction spread to the whole population, including King Alcithous.
Apollo gets offended and curses people with a hydious disease named syphilis, after the shepherd’s name. In Fracastoro’s tale, Syphilus, mad at Apollo for parching the trees and consuming the springs that fed the shepherd’s flocks, vowed not worship Apollo, but his King. His work “Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus” (1530) encompasses three books and presents a character named Syphilus, who was a shepherd leading the flocks of King Alcihtous, a character from Greek mythology. Therefore, the term ‘syphilis’ was introduced by Girolamo Fracastoro, a poet and medical personality in Verona. In the 16th century, Jean Fernelius, a Parisian teacher whose work and interests were channeled into the mercury treatment of the condition, coined the term ‘lues venera’ (‘venereal pest’) in his treaty dedicated to the affliction. However, the Hindu blamed the Muslims and in the end everyone blamed the Europeans. Moreover, in Northern India, the Muslims blamed the Hindu for the outbreak of the affliction. So, the inhabitants of today’s Italy, Germany and United Kingdom named syphilis ‘the French disease’, the French named it ‘the Neapolitan disease’, the Russians assigned the name of ‘Polish disease’, the Polish called it ‘the German disease’, The Danish, the Portuguese and the inhabitants of Northern Africa named it ‘the Spanish/Castilian disease’ and the Turks coined the term ‘Christian disease’. įrom the very beginning, syphilis has been a stigmatized, disgraceful disease each country whose population was affected by the infection blamed the neighboring (and sometimes enemy) countries for the outbreak. Of the aforementioned bacteria, syphilis is the sole sexually transmitted treponemal disease, as the other conditions are transmitted via direct contact with an infected individual.
The four members of the bacterial family cannot be differentiated with morphological, chemical or immunological methods. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema Pallidum, a bacterium classified under Spirochaets phylum, Spirochaetales order, Spirochaetaceae family, but there are at least three more known species causing human treponemal diseases such as Treponema pertenue that causes yaws, Treponema carateum causing pinta and Treponema pallidum endemicum-responsible for bejel or endemic syphilis.
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