January/February 2012 • Volume 10 • Issue 1 - SKINmed Journal

January/February 2012
obvious signs and symptoms, both the views commensurate
with the Columbian theory. Accordingly, the arguments for and
against the Columbian theory are listed below.
• Syphilis, as one form of pathologic treponematosis, has a
skeletal signature. Rothschild demonstrated that the osseotype
characteristics of syphilis were absent in specimens
from pre-Columbian Europe, Africa, and Asia. 27
• The sailors with Columbus in 1493 were said to have
brought the disease back to Spain. The Spanish fleet, when
they fought for King Alfonso II against the French forces of
Charles VIII of France in 1494–1495, heavily infected the
people of Naples. The illness spread rapidly around Europe
and mercenaries, who in 1496 joined Perkin Warbeck in
Scotland and with the support of James IV of Scotland,
invaded England, bore both arms and the grandgore (Old
French; grand gorre: grand = great + gore = syphilis), as it
was then called. In 1497, the Minutes of the Town Council
of Edinborough (Phil. Trans. XLII. 421) recognized: “This
contagious sickness call it the Grandgore.” 28
• The osseous evidence documents the presence of syphilis
in Hispanola, where Columbus landed. Columbus’ crew
had the opportunity and means to contract and spread this
venereal disease. 27
• In the work “Tractado contra el mal serpentino,” written
in 1510 and published in 1539, Ruy Diaz de Isla had
been thought to have cured, during the travel of return in
Europe, many members of the crew of Columbus, affections
from certain luetic manifestations, and thought that
the new disease was imported from Hispanola. This view
was supported by Bartolomè de Las Casas. 29
• The absence of evidence for congenital transmission of
the disease in pre-1492 North America suggests that this
treponemal disease was not the same venereal form we
know today. 30
CONTEMPORARY SCENARIO
Several archeologic studies have taken cognizance of phylogenetically
diverse material at different geographic locations and have
gathered together enough evidence to suggest that the disease
existed in Europe, long before the birth of Columbus (October
31, 1451–May 20, 1506). 31 The osseotype characteristics of
syphilis are absent in specimens from pre-Columbian Europe,
Africa, and Asia. 32
A study was conducted on approximately 240 skeletons exhumed
at the site of a medieval friary in Hull. The skeletons were mostly
of Augustinian friars, Mendicants serving the local poor, and seamen
and prostitutes. Of the 245 well-preserved skeletons found,
SKINmed. 2012;10:8–12
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COMMENTARY
207 were relatively complete. Many were buried in wooden
coffins, prepared from the wood brought from the Baltic
countries. Dendrochronologic examination indicated that the
trees had fallen between 1340 and 1369. The interpretation of the
findings was, therefore, found to be confusing. Three skeletons
showed more variable and more widespread bony lesions. One
of these three, number 1216, was that of a man aged between
25 and 35 years. He showed signs of syphilitic stigmata; thickening
with areas of localized disease of thigh bones, sabre-like
thickening of shin bones, perforation of the palate, and erosion
of the skull’s frontal bone, a condition called caries sicca.
Caries sicca, a bony finding from gummatous syphilis has been
described as “The only reliable and pathognomonic lesion of
syphilis….” 33 Other findings are of variable reliability. 34
Carbon-dating of the skeleton showed it to have lived sometime
between 1300 and 1420, corresponding to about a century
before Columbus’ first voyage in 1492 to 1493. Three paleopathologists
opined on the skeleton number 1216. Charlotte
Roberts recognized it as treponemal disease but could not distinguish
among them, 35 while Rothschild suggested that the
population frequency of skeletal involvement was too high for
treponemal disease. Secondly, the pattern of disease in the Hull
site is classic for yaws. It matches in all details the reports of skeletal
findings in yaws and is quite different than those for syphilis.
Much of what was diagnosed as disease appeared taphonomic. 36
George Armalegos, with extensive experience in viewing New
World, pre-Columbian bones allegedly showing changes due to
syphilis, was impressed but wanted the confirmation in terms of
quantity rather than quality.
Support for the existence of venereal syphilis in pre-Columbian
Europe comes from Dr Mattie Hennenberg 37 and his wife
based on the examination of 300 Greek skeletons buried in a
southern Italian port in 600 BCE, with the claim that many
of them showed changes similar to those of the Hull friary
skeletons, indicative of syphilis; however, taphonomy could be
a confounder. The term taphonomy (from the Greek taphos
[τα´ φος] meaning burial and nomos [vóμoς] meaning law) was
introduced to paleontology in 1940 by Russian scientist Ivan
Efremov to describe the study of the transition of remains, parts,
or products of organisms from the biosphere to the lithosphere,
that is a creation of fossil assemblages. 38
Hennenberg, a dental specialist, claimed that the upper central
incisor teeth from two skeletons showed “grooves,” proof of
congenital syphilis. A second “dig” of old bones from a port near
Pompeii offers similar bony findings. Recent research based on
exhumed human skeletons from a cemetery at an East London
church, St Mary Spital, identified rough patches on skulls and
Origin and Evolution of Syphilis