In the spring of 1495, a mysterious illness broke out, interrupting the Italian campaign of Charles VIII of France. The disease had a high mortality rate and quickly spread throughout Europe.
Survivors were left with permanent damage to their bodies and minds. This epidemic is now known to be the first historical documentation of syphilis.
Scholars have long debated the origins of syphilis. The outbreak in the late 15th century took place shortly after Columbus and his crew returned from their early expeditions to the Americas.
As a result, some believe that contact with new lands and new people was linked to the sudden onset of the disease, which is referred to as the “Columbian” theory.
During the early colonial period, many diseases made their way from Europe to the Americas, where they had devastating effects on indigenous populations. But syphilis is one of the few illnesses that made its way from the Americas to Europe.
Another theory is that syphilis existed in Europe long before Columbus and that the late 15th-century outbreak occurred for reasons other than new contacts. So far, neither theory has been confirmed.
Researchers are now analyzing pathogen DNA extracted from archaeological bone to unravel the history of syphilis. The bones are from several countries in the Americas, where infections left lesions similar to syphilis.
“We’ve known for some time that syphilis-like infections occurred in the Americas for millennia, but from the lesions alone, it’s impossible to fully characterize the disease,” said Casey Kirkpatrick, a postdoctoral researcher and paleopathologist who worked on the current study.
The team cannot determine exactly where the disease originated through bone pathology, but they were able to analyze five genomes of the syphilis family from Mexico, Peru, Chile, and Argentina.
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Syphilis is part of a small family of diseases that includes yaws and bejel. Both are considered to be neglected tropical diseases found across the globe in equatorial regions.
Archaeological bone from colonial Mexico has revealed the presence of syphilis and yaws by the 17th century in Mexico City. The data shows that this disease group was in the Americas before Columbus ever set foot in the region.
“We see extinct sister lineages for all known forms of this disease family, which means syphilis, yaws, and bejel are the modern legacies of pathogens that once circulated in the Americas,” said Rodrigo Barquera, a postdoctoral researcher.
“The data clearly support a root in the Americas for syphilis and its known relatives, and their introduction to Europe starting in the late 15th century is most consistent with the data.”
Indigenous American groups may have harbored early forms of the disease, but the global spread of syphilis was driven by European expansion across the Americas and Africa.
The study was published in the journal Nature.