# Are Malaria and VD "Modern" Diseases? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 7, 2008, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440 "2008-05-07T15:50:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/1 "2008-05-07T15:50:00Z")
I ask, because the ancient Romans appeared to live in marshy/swampy areas without problems (like the Pontine Marshes, south of Rome), and also had all kinds of standing water in their houses. Was malaria an import from the new world? as for VDs-the Romans had a huge trade in sex (brothels were common in Roman cities), yet nobody appears to have become ill from it. There seems to be no mention of these disease, untill the time of Columbus-did he bring them from South America? I know that malaria became a serious public health issue, in the Italian peninsula, by AD 1600-considerable resources were devoted to draining the Pontine swamps (and this was only completed under Mussolini, in the 1920’s). So were all of these terrible diseases imports from America? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/2 "2008-05-07T16:10:38Z")
Possibly for syphilis. It didn’t appear in Europe until after Columbus returned, and there are evidence of skeletons with signs of it in the New World before he got there. Gonorrhea was known to the Romans, but was a much milder infection during the height of the Empire. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/3 "2008-05-07T16:39:48Z")
This looks more like a student paper than a published article, but it has good sources and reads credibly. Well, except for the way she spells Juvenal. [http://www.angelfire.com/grrl/malibu\_selina/papers/prostitutes.html](http://www.angelfire.com/grrl/malibu_selina/papers/prostitutes.html) > [@](#): > > No one really knows when or where venereal diseases appeared. There is evidence of it in fifteenth century Europe, but much circumstantial evidence supports that it has been around since the beginning of human history. However, it is not explicitly mentioned by Greek or Latin authors. One of Juvenile’s passages mentions something that resembles a venereal disease, and several of Martial’s epigrams hint at something similar. Celsus, a writer who lived around 175 AD, described several diseases that are similar with syphilis. However, none of the descriptions given by any of the above authors mentioned these diseases as being contracted by sexual intercourse. Still, there were women and prostitutes that suffered from ‘secret diseases’, and they were called “aucunnuentae”. Women with these diseases (morbus indecens) were refused treatment from Roman doctors, who considered it indecent not only to treat the diseases, but also to admit to having them. Women who were infected had no other hope but to pray to Juno and other goddesses and take herbs as medicine for the diseases. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/4 "2008-05-07T16:44:02Z")
Malaria is among the earliest recorded diseases; Chinese and Indian texts refer to it as far back as 2000BC. It appears basically everywhere the anopeles mosquito does, so more or less across the tropical bits of the globe. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/5 "2008-05-07T16:50:39Z")
In his book, “Malaria and Rome”, Robert Sallares argues that malaria was endemic to Romam Italy since the city was founded. At the vary least, it was prevalent by the first century, because Celsus describes tertian fever, which is pretty definately malaria. Hippocrates also describes what’s probably malaria in his books “On Epidemics” and “Airs, Waters, Places”. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/6 "2008-05-07T17:02:40Z")
Malaria is ancient enough that human populations have evolved [partial resistance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria#Evolutionary_pressure_of_malaria_on_human_genes) to it. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/7 "2008-05-07T22:03:14Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] … except for the way she spells Juvenal. [/QUOTE] Over-reliance on spell-check, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/8 "2008-05-07T22:35:54Z")
I don’t have a cite for this, but I saw something recently on PBS that said that evidence was found that syphilis was an Old World disease. The program showed skeletons that had evidence of third-stage syphilis from Europe that dated before 1492. Has anyone else heard about this? Thanks, Rob ---
**Author:** ![NunOfTheAbove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@NunOfTheAbove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NunOfTheAbove)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/9 "2008-05-07T22:59:51Z")
[QUOTE=sweeteviljesus] I don’t have a cite for this, but I saw something recently on PBS that said that evidence was found that syphilis was an Old World disease. The program showed skeletons that had evidence of third-stage syphilis from Europe that dated before 1492. Has anyone else heard about this? [/QUOTE] Science(It’s subscription or I would post a link) a few months back ran an article about the sequencing and phylogenetic comparison of a rare form of Yaws that appears to be the progenator of syphilis. The problem with their study is the samples were kept in very poor conditions and lots of DNA degredation took place. When they returned to get more samples the following year, they had all too successfully removed the Yaws from the population. Still, it is an interesting study and does lend evidence to syphilis to having old-world origins. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/10 "2008-05-08T00:03:02Z")
One clue that malaria was present in the New World, was the indian’s use of the anti-malarial cinchona bark (quinine)… So malaria was presnt in pre-Columbian south america. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2008, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/11 "2008-05-08T00:44:36Z")
[QUOTE=sweeteviljesus] I don’t have a cite for this, but I saw something recently on PBS that said that evidence was found that syphilis was an Old World disease. The program showed skeletons that had evidence of third-stage syphilis from Europe that dated before 1492. Has anyone else heard about this? Thanks, Rob [/QUOTE] Yes. I saw it at work, but I can’t remember the name of the program. It was reputable, though, not just some twerp with a theory. IIRC, their proposal was that the spirochete that causes syphilis was a relatively harmless member of the population’s flora until cities and trade became widespread. A mutated pathogenic version popped up and took advantage of the newly concentrated urban areas to become the syphilis we now know and love. They did, indeed, have some pretty convincing skeletal evidence (not just DNA - syphilis leaves traces in the bones) from the Old World, well before Columbus. I wish I could remember more about it. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/12 "2008-05-10T00:47:08Z")
[QUOTE=Smeghead] Yes. I saw it at work, but I can’t remember the name of the program. [/QUOTE] Possibly this episode of [Secrets of the Dead](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_syphilis/)? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-malaria-and-vd-modern-diseases/448440/13 "2008-05-10T03:52:32Z")
Yes! Thank you.