Did Christopher Columbus bring syphilis from America to Europe?

Syphilis and Christopher Columbus have more in common than you might think. Both landed on new continents and colonized the locals in the late 15th century: Columbus colonized the Native Americans, syphilis colonized the Europeans, and both were also looking for a way to Asia.

Syphilis appeared through first time in Europe in 1494in a French army camp, a year after Columbus returned from a trip to America. The disfiguring disease spread among soldiers and their sexual partners, causing sores on the genitals, rectum or mouth.

In just five years, syphilis had spread throughout Europe and, shortly thereafter, to India, China and Japan. Sex, although not the only route of transmission, is an effective means of spreading the disease.

The call “Colombian hypothesis” argues that syphilis was brought to Europe by sailors returning from their colonization of Native Americans. The idea is that diseases were exchanged between Europeans and Americansas well as new commodities, such as gunpowder for tomatoes or smallpox for syphilis.

In recent years, the scientific community has been divided over the relationship between Columbus’s trip to America and the emergence of the disease in Europe.

A study published in January supports Europe, and another study in 2020 found evidence that the disease had reached Europe.

A new study, led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and published this week in the scientific journal Nature, now gives credence to the “Colombian hypothesis”.

During the study, Kirsten Bosan anthropologist at Max Planck, carried out a genetic analysis of five skeletons found in South America. The analyzes led Bos and his colleagues to believe that a precursor of the bacteria that causes syphilis had circulated in the Americas 8000 years ago.

“Four of the five skeletons [que analisámos] date back to before 1492which means that this diversity of pathogens was already present in the Americas at the time of Colombian contact,” said study author Bos.

Syphilis originated in America 8000 years ago

To test the Colombian hypothesis, Bos and his colleagues carried out a genetic analysis of the bacteria present in the bone lesions of the five skeletons, from Chile, Argentina, Peru and Mexico.

Their bacterial samples included three subspecies of the treponemal bacteria family, which are responsible for different treponemal diseases. A subspecies, T. palecauses modern syphilis.

Bos compared the genetic differences of older treponemal subspecies with samples of modern syphilis. This data allowed the team to extrapolate how long it took the bacteria to evolve and estimate when the pathogen emerged.

Their analysis appears to confirm that the bacterium T. pallidum, which causes syphilis, emerged from the 8000-year-old precursoraround the time of Columbus.

“Our model suggests that syphilis first appeared about 500 or 600 years ago, whether in the Americas or Europe (or elsewhere) from a strain [bacteriana] introduced from the Americas”, these Bos.

How did syphilis spread around the world?

The study provides compelling evidence that T. pallidum circulated widely in the Americas before Columbus arrived from Renaissance Europe. However, it does not conclusively prove that syphilis was brought to Europe from the Americas.

“It shows that]the Americas acted as a reservoir where [as bactérias causadoras da sífilis] circulated widely. It could still have come to Europe from somewhere else or already be there,” said Mathew Beale, a genomics expert at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK. Beale did not participate in the study.

Studies show that treponemal diseases may have been endemic in northern Europe around the same time as Columbus’s voyages or possibly even earlier.

The exact origins of syphilis are difficult to pinpoint, said Kerttu Majander, an archaeogeneticist at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

One hypothesis is that treponemal diseases always existedhitching a ride on humans when they migrated from Asia to the Americas around 12,000 years ago.

“Another theory is that they are zoonotic, which means that [os precursores da sífilis] passed from animals to humans in America. But we have not yet found evidence of animals with treponemal diseases,” said Majander.

It is also unclear what caused modern syphilis to emerge as a highly transmissible sexually transmitted infection 500-600 years ago.

“It could be that something caused the species of treponemal bacteria to recombine and cause more aggressive forms of syphilisbut we don’t know,” said Majander.

What makes the situation even more complicated is the fact that the Syphilis and gonorrhea are often confused in historical records and were only formally recognized as distinct diseases around 200 years ago.

“There is still historical debate over whether the ‘syphilis’ outbreak described in the 15th century was actually caused by T. pallidum,” Beale said.

Antibiotic-resistant strains of syphilis are a current problem

Without treatment, syphilis disfigured people’s bodies and caused paralysis, blindness, pain attacks, and even death.

The development of the antibiotic penicillin in 1943 he eradicated the dangerous symptoms of syphilis, but not the disease itself.

But syphilis is still alive. Sexual transmission causes more than 8 million new cases per yearwhile congenital syphilis causes around 200,000 stillbirths. Cases are also increasing in young adults and research suggests this may be linked to an increase in unprotected sex.
There are also antibiotic-resistant strains of T. pallidum, meaning more deadly syphilis infections are resurfacing.

That’s why studies like this are relevant, Majander said, especially if we want to eradicate syphilis: “The study shows that syphilis has the ability to adapt to any environment. It raises the question of whether other treponemal diseases already existed and whether new, more aggressive diseases may emerge in the future.”