Abstract
When syphilis first appeared in Europe in 1495, it was an acute and extremely unpleasant disease. After only a few years it was less severe than it once was, and it changed over the next 50 years into a milder, chronic disease. The severe early symptoms may have been the result of the disease being introduced into a new host population without any resistance mechanisms, but the change in virulence is most likely to have happened because of selection favouring milder strains of the pathogen. The symptoms of the virulent early disease were both debilitating and obvious to potential sexual partners of the infected, and strains that caused less obvious or painful symptoms would have enjoyed a higher transmission rate.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (71.0 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Anderson R. M., May R. M. Coevolution of hosts and parasites. Parasitology. 1982 Oct;85(Pt 2):411–426. doi: 10.1017/s0031182000055360. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Baker B. J., Armelagos G. J. The origin and antiquity of syphilis: paleopathological diagnosis and interpretation. Curr Anthropol. 1988;29(5):703–738. doi: 10.1086/203691. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Battu V. R., Horner P. J., Taylor P. K., Jephcott A. E., Egglestone S. I. Locally acquired heterosexual outbreak of syphilis in Bristol. Lancet. 1997 Oct 11;350(9084):1100–1101. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)70460-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Chesson H. W., Pinkerton S. D. Sexually transmitted diseases and the increased risk for HIV transmission: implications for cost-effectiveness analyses of sexually transmitted disease prevention interventions. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2000 May 1;24(1):48–56. doi: 10.1097/00126334-200005010-00009. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Cook P. A., Clark P., Bellis M. A., Ashton J. R., Syed Q., Hoskins A., Higgins S. P., Sukthankar A., Chandiok S. Re-emerging syphilis in the UK: a behavioural analysis of infected individuals. Commun Dis Public Health. 2001 Dec;4(4):253–258. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Escriu Fernando, Fraile Aurora, García-Arenal Fernando. The evolution of virulence in a plant virus. Evolution. 2003 Apr;57(4):755–765. doi: 10.1111/j.0014-3820.2003.tb00287.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Fenner F. The Florey lecture, 1983. Biological control, as exemplified by smallpox eradication and myxomatosis. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 1983 Jun 22;218(1212):259–285. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1983.0039. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Frank S. A. Models of parasite virulence. Q Rev Biol. 1996 Mar;71(1):37–78. doi: 10.1086/419267. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Guerra F. The dispute over syphilis. Europe versus America. Clio Med. 1978 Jun;13(1):39–61. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- HUDSON E. H. Treponematosis and anthropology. Ann Intern Med. 1963 Jun;58:1037–1048. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-58-6-1037. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Lipsitch M., Moxon E. R. Virulence and transmissibility of pathogens: what is the relationship? Trends Microbiol. 1997 Jan;5(1):31–37. doi: 10.1016/S0966-842X(97)81772-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Meyer C., Jung C., Kohl T., Poenicke A., Poppe A., Alt K. W. Syphilis 2001--a palaeopathological reappraisal. Homo. 2002;53(1):39–58. doi: 10.1078/0018-442x-00037. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Rothschild B. M., Calderon F. L., Coppa A., Rothschild C. First European exposure to syphilis: the Dominican Republic at the time of Columbian contact. Clin Infect Dis. 2000 Oct 20;31(4):936–941. doi: 10.1086/318158. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]