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Subject: Findings Counter Theory on Syphilis; Skeletons Indicate Disease Existed in
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 04:44:31 EST
Message-ID: <36.1992Nov19.044432@AmeriCast.com>

Findings Counter Theory on Syphilis; Skeletons Indicate Disease
Existed in Europe Before Columbus Sailed<By Boyce
Rensberger=Washington Post Staff Writer=

Scientists have discovered what they say is the first solid evi-
dence that syphilis was present in the Old World before the time
of Columbus. Their findings, if confirmed, could overthrow the
prevalent view that the explorer and his crew acquired the infec-
tion in America and introduced it into a Europe that had never
known the ravaging disease.

The question of whether syphilis was already in Europe before
1492 has been one of the most intensely debated in the study of
the history of human diseases. There is much evidence that
syphilis has been in the Americas for thousands of years but
there have been no generally accepted examples of it in Europe
before the outbreak of a series of epidemics beginning in 1500.

The newest evidence consists of "classic" pathological scarring
seen on the skeletal remains of two people who lived in England
in the 1400s and whose bones have just been examined by experts.
"These are the first really convincing cases I've seen from a Eu-
ropean population before 1500," said Donald J. Ortner, one of the
country's leading experts on syphilis in ancient peoples. "I ex-
pect this will settle the debate."

Ortner, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of
Natural History, has long argued that syphilis should have been
in Europe long before Columbus but "I was getting worried that
nobody was able to find any skeletons with convincing evidence of
it."

Ortner's findings, which he disclosed in an interview this week
on his return from England, bolster a report last week by South
African anthropologists who say they have found possible evidence
of syphilis in skeletons buried in southern Italy at the ancient
Greek colony of Metaponto.

In that case, the researchers said the skeletons showed damage
inflicted by the bacterium that causes syphilis - a spirochete
called Treponema - but said they did not know whether the people
actually suffered syphilis.

This is because the same Treponema bacterium can cause two other
diseases that affect bone in similar ways - yaws and bejel.
These are not transmitted sexually but through casual contact,
usually among children. One of the great mysteries of treponemal
disease is that the symptoms differ depending on the mode of in-
fection and the local climate. Yaws is prevalent in the humid
tropics, bejel in arid warm climates.

Syphilis is thought to be the form treponemal disease takes in
climates where clothing and better hygiene prevent casual
transmission among children, leaving adults vulnerable to infec-
tion through sexual contact. Syphilis is the most severe form of
treponemal disease.

The English cases Ortner examined are significant because, unlike
those in southern Italy, they occurred in a climate where
syphilis would have been the most likely form of treponemal
disease.

One of the cases came to light in 1991 when British anthropolo-
gists, digging in a medieval church graveyard called Blackfriars
in Gloucester, found the skeleton of a young woman whose bones
appeared to have the characteristic pitting that advanced
syphilis can cause. Local records show the cemetery was abandoned
in 1420.

This fall Ortner went to the University of Bradford in West
Yorkshire, where the skeleton was being kept, to reconstruct the
broken skull and verify the diagnosis. He found "very typical"
patches of pitting on the forehead, the shinbones, the collar-
bones and the breastbone - all classic sites for the syphilis
bacterium to attack.  Some other bones were pitted as well.

While in England, Ortner was shown the skull of another person
said to have lived "before 1500" and found it "if anything, even
more convincing" because its skull lesion took the classic "stel-
late" form of a central pit of eroded bone with lines extending
in all directions.

A leading advocate of the theory that there was no treponemal
disease in Europe before Columbus said that the English skeletons
were intriguing and that he plans to go to England next summer to
analyze them himself. But, said George J. Armelagos of the
University of Florida in Gainesville, "I'm not willing to give up
my position on this without a lot more evidence."

Armelagos said that nontreponemal diseases can cause similar bone
damage and that if syphilis were truly present, there should be
many cases of it among the thousands of pre-1500 skeletons that
have been examined.<02:27 11-19C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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