The first written records of an outbreak…
1492 CE to 1503 CE
Because it is spread by returning French troops, the disease is known as "French disease", and it will not be until 1530 that the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro first applies the term "syphilis" to the disease.
The exact origin of syphilis is unknown.
There are two primary hypotheses: one proposes that syphilis was carried to Europe from the Americas by the crew of Christopher Columbus, the other proposes that syphilis previously existed in Europe (as a mutated variety of yaws) but went unrecognized.
Evidence published in late 2011 will suggest that the Columbian hypothesis is the valid one.
The Columbian theory holds that syphilis was a New World disease brought back by Columbus and Martín Alonso Pinzón.
Columbus's voyages to the Americas had occurred three years before the Naples syphilis outbreak of 1494.
This theory is supported by genetic studies of venereal syphilis and related bacteria, which found a disease intermediate between yaws and syphilis in Guyana, South America.
Researchers concluded that syphilis was carried from the New World to Europe after Columbus' voyages.
Many of the crew members who served on this voyage had later joined the army of King Charles VIII in his invasion of Italy in 1495, resulting in the spreading of the disease across Europe and as many as five million deaths.
The findings suggested Europeans could have carried the nonvenereal tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the different conditions and low immunity of the population of Europe.
The syphilis virus, spreading quickly, reaches Switzerland and Germany in 1495, and by 1500 reaches epidemic proportions.
Europeans begin treating syphilis with mercury compounds, based on Arabic use of these compounds to treat skin diseases.
Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gama becomes, in 1498, the first European to sail around Africa to reach India, opening the East to Portuguese commerce.; his crew members may have brought syphilis to South India.
Syphilis is almost immediately stigmatized: each country blames the outbreak on a neighbor country or rival bloc.
The Danish, the Portuguese and the inhabitants of the Mahgreb name it ‘the Castilian disease’ or ’the Spanish Disease.
The French call it ‘the Neapolitan disease’.
Italians, Germans, and English name syphilis ‘the French disease’; the Poles call it ‘the German disease’ and the Russians name it ‘Polish disease’.
The Turks call syphilis the ‘Christian disease’.
In northern India, the Muslims blame the Hindus for the outbreak; the Hindus blame the Muslims.
Both parties ultimately blame the Europeans.