The syphilis enigma.

The excavation of a medieval Hull friary provides new evidence for the study of the history of syphilis. A 14th century skeleton shows the marks of syphilis and indicates that the disease was present in Britain at least one hundred years earlier than was previously supposed. Syphilis was hitherto thought to have been brought to Europe by Christopher Columbus in 1492 after his voyage to America. The Hull evidence was discovered by paleopathologist Charlotte Roberts (Univ. of Bradford). Carbon dating of the bones and dendrochronology techniques carried out on the coffin wood established in the date of the skeleton. Evidence that syphilis existed in Europe in classical times was found in the remains of a Greek settlement in the S. Italian city of Meta Ponto. The organism was not always deadly, nor was it originally sexually transmitted. The theory is put forward that it mutated in order to survive, finding it could best do this by settling in the sexual organs of the body. The American Indians visited by Columbus probably had immunity to syphilis so that it occured among them in a mild form. But the new diseases brought by Columbus' expedition damaged their immunity and turned syphilis into a terminal condition.