A Cultural History of Syphilis
May 18, 2013 12:46 AM Subscribe
How syphilis took Europe by storm during the 1490s, and the far reaching effects it's had ever since
The French medical world was obsessed with syphilis well into the 20th century. I remember a medical Larousse dictionary from the late 1970s: syphilis was proposed as a potential cause for every symptom listed. Whatever was wrong with your body: syphilis. Whatever was wrong with your child's body: congenital syphilis.
posted by elgilito at 1:45 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by elgilito at 1:45 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
> The Unfortunate Rake
See also: "Pills of White Mercury", for example as performed by the Old Blind Dogs.
posted by sourcequench at 2:01 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
See also: "Pills of White Mercury", for example as performed by the Old Blind Dogs.
posted by sourcequench at 2:01 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
posted by orrnyereg at 3:10 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by orrnyereg at 3:10 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Well that was fascinating, ... I'm really looking forward to the May 26th radio show.
posted by Auden at 3:22 AM on May 18, 2013
posted by Auden at 3:22 AM on May 18, 2013
Leonard Bernstein and his librettists describe the spread of syphilis quite charmingly in two different songs from CANDIDE.
In Auto-da-fe [lyrics], Pangloss describes how the disease that robbed him of his nose came to via a chain of lovers ("Oh my darling Paquette, / She is haunting me yet / With a dear souvenir / I shall never forget. / 'Twas a gift that she got / From a seafaring Scot, / He received he believed in Shalott! / In Shalott from his dame / Who was certain it came / With a kiss from a Swiss / (She'd forgotten his name)," and so on.)
In Dear Boy [1956 libretto], Pangloss tries to look at it positively: "Columbus and his men, they say, / Conveyed the virus hither, / Whereby my features rot away / And vital powers wither; / Yet had they not traversed the seas / And come infected back / Why, think of all the luxuries / That modern life would lack! / Dear boy: / All bitter things conduce to sweet, / As this example shows; / Without the little spirochete, / We'd have no chocolate to eat / Nor would tobacco's fragrance greet / The European nose"
posted by orthicon halo at 4:21 AM on May 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
In Auto-da-fe [lyrics], Pangloss describes how the disease that robbed him of his nose came to via a chain of lovers ("Oh my darling Paquette, / She is haunting me yet / With a dear souvenir / I shall never forget. / 'Twas a gift that she got / From a seafaring Scot, / He received he believed in Shalott! / In Shalott from his dame / Who was certain it came / With a kiss from a Swiss / (She'd forgotten his name)," and so on.)
In Dear Boy [1956 libretto], Pangloss tries to look at it positively: "Columbus and his men, they say, / Conveyed the virus hither, / Whereby my features rot away / And vital powers wither; / Yet had they not traversed the seas / And come infected back / Why, think of all the luxuries / That modern life would lack! / Dear boy: / All bitter things conduce to sweet, / As this example shows; / Without the little spirochete, / We'd have no chocolate to eat / Nor would tobacco's fragrance greet / The European nose"
posted by orthicon halo at 4:21 AM on May 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
One thing note mentioned in that piece is that the initial epidemics of syphilis were way, way worse than the comparatively wan disease we know today. Lack of antibiotics wasn't just an issue; the disease itself was worse. It killed people, and killed them much faster than syphilis does today.
For those interested, I heartily endorse the entry from this yale course on epidemics in Western society concerned with syphilis.
posted by smoke at 4:26 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
For those interested, I heartily endorse the entry from this yale course on epidemics in Western society concerned with syphilis.
posted by smoke at 4:26 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
Cesare Borgia, Dark Lord of the Syph.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:33 AM on May 18, 2013 [7 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:33 AM on May 18, 2013 [7 favorites]
The Wages Of Sin: How The Discovery Of Penicillin Reshaped Modern Sexuality, at PubMed. Their hypothesis is that a cure fpr syphilis increased the amounts of risky, non-traditional sex (as measured through a few proxies), and allowed the Sexual Revolution to kick off. Some of these posters demonstrate the need for a real cure.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:46 AM on May 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:46 AM on May 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
It's not in the article, but syphilis was also a key factor in driving prostitution underground. Before 1492, cities like London, Venice, and Rome had thriving legal bordellos. (In Rome, the pope even took a cut of the profits.) By the mid-16th century, they were all shut down. Of course, demand didn't go away and so the trade continued.
I'm sure it also played a part in the witch trials that swept Europe in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Syphilis was usually quite visible in men, but often far less so in women, so they could be "unclean" but no one could tell. This coupled with how the Reformation allowed every man to interpret the Bible allowed those with a misogynistic bent to capitalize on the fear.
Some people have theorized that syphilis also led to the popularity of the codpiece, because it was an exterior show of virility, but hid the fact that inside there were heavily bandaged members of the diseased.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:07 AM on May 18, 2013 [8 favorites]
I'm sure it also played a part in the witch trials that swept Europe in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Syphilis was usually quite visible in men, but often far less so in women, so they could be "unclean" but no one could tell. This coupled with how the Reformation allowed every man to interpret the Bible allowed those with a misogynistic bent to capitalize on the fear.
Some people have theorized that syphilis also led to the popularity of the codpiece, because it was an exterior show of virility, but hid the fact that inside there were heavily bandaged members of the diseased.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:07 AM on May 18, 2013 [8 favorites]
It's time for another round of, 'that writer you like was wow a messed up dude'
But many of its sufferers didn't know that then. Guy de Maupassant, who started triumphant ("I can screw street whores now and say to them 'I've got the pox.' They are afraid and I just laugh"), died 15 years later in an asylum howling like a dog and planting twigs as baby Maupassants in the garden.
posted by angrycat at 5:27 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
But many of its sufferers didn't know that then. Guy de Maupassant, who started triumphant ("I can screw street whores now and say to them 'I've got the pox.' They are afraid and I just laugh"), died 15 years later in an asylum howling like a dog and planting twigs as baby Maupassants in the garden.
posted by angrycat at 5:27 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
The Wages Of Sin: How The Discovery Of Penicillin Reshaped Modern Sexuality,
Color me skeptical about that. When you read of the private lives of men in the C17th, C18th and C19th it always seems amazing just how little the fear of STDs seemed to constrain behavior. Pepys, Boswell, Byron etc--they'd all sleep with pretty much anything that stayed still long enough. Boswell repeatedly caught the clap and would periodically swear off whoring; and then be right back at it shortly afterwards.
It's not in the article, but syphilis was also a key factor in driving prostitution underground.
But it wasn't really "underground" in C18th or C19th European cities, except in the most superficial way. Prostitutes were visible all over the city streets and you could buy guides (like Zagat or Michelin guides) to the offerings of the various brothels around town. Serious police attempts to drive prostitution out of sight of the "respectable" populace is really a C20th phenomenon.
posted by yoink at 6:07 AM on May 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
Color me skeptical about that. When you read of the private lives of men in the C17th, C18th and C19th it always seems amazing just how little the fear of STDs seemed to constrain behavior. Pepys, Boswell, Byron etc--they'd all sleep with pretty much anything that stayed still long enough. Boswell repeatedly caught the clap and would periodically swear off whoring; and then be right back at it shortly afterwards.
It's not in the article, but syphilis was also a key factor in driving prostitution underground.
But it wasn't really "underground" in C18th or C19th European cities, except in the most superficial way. Prostitutes were visible all over the city streets and you could buy guides (like Zagat or Michelin guides) to the offerings of the various brothels around town. Serious police attempts to drive prostitution out of sight of the "respectable" populace is really a C20th phenomenon.
posted by yoink at 6:07 AM on May 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
The French medical world was obsessed with syphilis well into the 20th century. I remember a medical Larousse dictionary from the late 1970s: syphilis was proposed as a potential cause for every symptom listed.
'Obsessed' may be the wrong word. In a syphilis-rich environment, a concern that any symptom might be syphilis was appropriate. The problem is that the manifestations of syphilis are truly protean. It was once said of physicians that, "He who knows syphilis, knows medicine."
It has been speculated that the general decline of syphilis in the modern world has been due in part not to deliberate treatment, but to the saturation of the population in developed countries with antibiotics. Syphilis is killed by a great many antibiotics, and the guy who goes to his doc with a URI and gets an inappropriate prescription for amoxicillin may get his asymptomatic secondary syphilis cured, without him or the doc realizing it.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 6:10 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
'Obsessed' may be the wrong word. In a syphilis-rich environment, a concern that any symptom might be syphilis was appropriate. The problem is that the manifestations of syphilis are truly protean. It was once said of physicians that, "He who knows syphilis, knows medicine."
It has been speculated that the general decline of syphilis in the modern world has been due in part not to deliberate treatment, but to the saturation of the population in developed countries with antibiotics. Syphilis is killed by a great many antibiotics, and the guy who goes to his doc with a URI and gets an inappropriate prescription for amoxicillin may get his asymptomatic secondary syphilis cured, without him or the doc realizing it.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 6:10 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
The article is interesting, but a little wide-eyed. The long list of artists who had syphilis is actually mostly a list of artists about whom people have speculated. Diagnosing dead people from scanty and contradictory historical records is, though, a famously uncertain practice and the fact that syphilis presents itself in so many different symptoms makes it both especially tempting and especially suspect in that regard. Did Van Gogh, say, have syphilis? Well, who knows? Plenty of doctors saw him during his life and plenty of them were well aware of the symptoms of syphilis and none of them diagnosed him with syphilis while he was under their treatment. Attributing his mental decline to syphilis seems highly implausible because it would be a remarkably early onset of those kinds of symptoms. But, you know, people like the idea of the artist being damned by his bohemian extravagances, so the story sticks. Just as people like the idea of him being driven mad by the psychedelic powers of the fee verte--despite the minor problem of their nonexistence.
posted by yoink at 6:22 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by yoink at 6:22 AM on May 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
It's probably too late, but it would be interesting to know what were the effects of syphilis on the mores and belief systems of pre-Columbian societies, who presumably had adapted to some level of endemic syphilis in their populations.
posted by sneebler at 6:58 AM on May 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by sneebler at 6:58 AM on May 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
Now, see, I'm still in Season One. And reading this, all I could think is that judging by the prevalence of pretty boys in Borgia, they were unlikely to show this on screen. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong.
posted by RedEmma at 7:37 AM on May 18, 2013
posted by RedEmma at 7:37 AM on May 18, 2013
Why do so many British publications refer to AIDS as Aids? I know they understand what acronyms are, so I find this really weird.
Also I can't decide if I'm pleased or disappointed that this doesn't address the hilariously pervasive belief that syphilis was a zoonotic disease contracted when Columbus' men screwed llamas, except as a few lols in the comments.
posted by elizardbits at 7:48 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also I can't decide if I'm pleased or disappointed that this doesn't address the hilariously pervasive belief that syphilis was a zoonotic disease contracted when Columbus' men screwed llamas, except as a few lols in the comments.
posted by elizardbits at 7:48 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Why do so many British publications refer to AIDS as Aids? I know they understand what acronyms are, so I find this really weird.
Some style guides specify that you capitalize only the first letter of an acronym if the acronym is pronounced as a word rather than as individual letters. So UN but Unesco.
posted by hoyland at 8:24 AM on May 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
Some style guides specify that you capitalize only the first letter of an acronym if the acronym is pronounced as a word rather than as individual letters. So UN but Unesco.
posted by hoyland at 8:24 AM on May 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
> It's time for another round of, 'that writer you like was wow a messed up dude'
Hey, Guy de Maupassant was (apparently) just infecting other people with an incurable, fatal disease for the lulz.
I mean, he wasn't a monster like Orson Scott Card or anything.
posted by sourcequench at 10:54 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Hey, Guy de Maupassant was (apparently) just infecting other people with an incurable, fatal disease for the lulz.
I mean, he wasn't a monster like Orson Scott Card or anything.
posted by sourcequench at 10:54 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Why do so many British publications refer to AIDS as Aids? I know they understand what acronyms are, so I find this really weird. --elizardbits
After seeing Nasa instead of NASA in a BBC article I looked it up. It is in official style guides in England to only capitalize the first letter of acronyms. It definitely looks weird to American eyes.
posted by eye of newt at 11:03 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
After seeing Nasa instead of NASA in a BBC article I looked it up. It is in official style guides in England to only capitalize the first letter of acronyms. It definitely looks weird to American eyes.
posted by eye of newt at 11:03 AM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Re: effects of syphillis on pre-Columbian mores in N/A culture,
The Aztec people at least, strongly discouraged pre-marital sex, and married relatively late. The children of the Aztec nobility had schools for reading and writing and math. they had special dancing schools, and sports. Girls and boys had separate schools. Poorer people still married late. The children of the poor worked hard, that they hoped would keep them 'out of trouble'.
The Aztecs also had brothels and prostitution. The temples regulated this prostitution and took a cut of the profits. This was well before contact with Europeans.
The Aztecs had a very strict social order.
Further North, I am sure the original inhabitants experienced syphillis as well.
A lot of N/A societies maimed or killed unfaithful wives. This sounds pretty brutal to people these days, and it was, but they probably knew that female carriers were often asymptomatic and they had no cures. Some had symptomatic treatments, but what you really need is antibiotics and no one anywhere had antibiotics.
Societies which get hit with terrible STDs that don't have a cure seem to become obsessed with virginity, chastity and obtaining the youngest possible wife/s for men.
A society with cures and treatments, or a society free of STDs can afford to be a lot less interested in the sexual past of men and women.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:45 AM on May 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
The Aztec people at least, strongly discouraged pre-marital sex, and married relatively late. The children of the Aztec nobility had schools for reading and writing and math. they had special dancing schools, and sports. Girls and boys had separate schools. Poorer people still married late. The children of the poor worked hard, that they hoped would keep them 'out of trouble'.
The Aztecs also had brothels and prostitution. The temples regulated this prostitution and took a cut of the profits. This was well before contact with Europeans.
The Aztecs had a very strict social order.
Further North, I am sure the original inhabitants experienced syphillis as well.
A lot of N/A societies maimed or killed unfaithful wives. This sounds pretty brutal to people these days, and it was, but they probably knew that female carriers were often asymptomatic and they had no cures. Some had symptomatic treatments, but what you really need is antibiotics and no one anywhere had antibiotics.
Societies which get hit with terrible STDs that don't have a cure seem to become obsessed with virginity, chastity and obtaining the youngest possible wife/s for men.
A society with cures and treatments, or a society free of STDs can afford to be a lot less interested in the sexual past of men and women.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 11:45 AM on May 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
It is in official style guides in England to only capitalize the first letter of acronyms.
Only if it's pronounced as a word - if the letters are spelled out individually then they're capitalised.
posted by kersplunk at 12:18 PM on May 18, 2013
Only if it's pronounced as a word - if the letters are spelled out individually then they're capitalised.
posted by kersplunk at 12:18 PM on May 18, 2013
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posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:31 AM on May 18, 2013 [2 favorites]