I’ve always understood that syphilis and gonorrhea were among the little “gifts” Europeans brought to the Native American inhabitants of the New World. But I’ve been reading Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose’s book on the Lewis and Clark expedition, and Ambrose remarks historians are still arguing whether Europeans infected Native Americans with STD’s or whether those diseases only showed up in Europe after 1492. From various things I’ve read, such as a theory that Caligula’s madness was the result of syphilis, I’ve always assumed all historians were in agreement that STD’s originated in the eastern hemisphere in antiquity.
While obviously there were no scientific tests for STD’s back in the day, there must surely be numerous accounts of the symptoms. Are there no such accounts prior to 1492? Are there any oral histories from Native American nations that would support either side of this controversy? Anybody have any resources that could shed some light on the whole issue?
“STDs” are not all one thing. Isn’t the simplest assumption that the Europeans brought some over, and also took some other ones back with them?
That said, the preponderance of diseases seem to have gone from the Europeans to the Americans, not vice-versa. The best discussion of the reasons for this is probably in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.
While many human diseases were brought to the Americas from Europe and Africa after Columbus, syphilis has long been considered a possible example of one that was transmitted in the reverse direction, from the Americas to the Old World. There is definite evidence for the existence of syphilis in the Americas before Columbus, including genetic data. Some researchers have suggested that descriptions and lesions on skeletons from Europe indicate the disease was present there before Columbus, but this evidence is disputed. The first widely recognized outbreak of syphilis in Europe began in 1494. The fact that it was highly virulent suggests it was either a newly introduced disease or a new mutation. The timing implicates transmission from the Americas.
A summary of the different theories can be found on the Wiki page on syphilis.
After reading the article, I gather there’s at least a reasonable chance that one or more strains of syphilis were introduced to the Native American population by Europeans, and one or more strains introduced to the Europeans by the Americans.
I suppose there’s no way of determining if gonorrhea was already present in the Native American population, as from what I understand, there’s no skeletal evidence.
Sorry about the typo in the title, BTW. I know how to edit a comment but couldn’t figure out how to edit the title.
I hadn’t heard (or noticed) anything asserting Europeans brought it to the Americas, or had it at all before Columbus. Is there really any solid evidence showing that? This seems like one of the sort of diseases people get judgmental about, is it possible that people are arguing for European origin on thin grounds because of emotion?
I never mean “political correctness,” at least not as the term has been degraded to mean. It was a wonderful term in the 1980s when everyone I knew used it to mean “currently correct political opinion” in the ironic knowledge that that changes frequently while everyone pretends it to be eternal. In the early 1980s, Reagan’s joke about “the bombing begins in 5 minutes” was politically correct as we understood and used it.
Using it to just mean “a caricature of liberalism” is dull indeed, and something of a slur.
What I was referring to above was just that humans often shade their science and history with various emotional issues, and this disease is a “bad” one, so the fact that – although there doesn’t seem to be any evidence for it having come from Europe – people still interpret “inconclusive” as “yes, some strains probably came from Europe” struck me as one of these times.