From bcuthill@us.net Wed Aug 1 06:43:57 2001 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f71Dhu0104070 for ; Wed, 1 Aug 2001 06:43:56 -0700 Received: from us.net (qmailr@newmail2.one.net [216.23.22.182]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with SMTP id f71DhuF31867 for ; Wed, 1 Aug 2001 06:43:56 -0700 Received: (qmail 18993 invoked by uid 0); 1 Aug 2001 13:43:46 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?198.240.90.120?) (198.240.90.44) by newmail2.us.net with SMTP; 1 Aug 2001 13:43:46 -0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: bcuthill@mail.us.net Message-Id: Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 09:20:01 -0400 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: Sally Winchester Subject: Syphilis in the ancient world Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Status: O X-Status: I was wondering if anyone had seen last night's installment of Secrets of the Dead on PBS concerning the origins of syphilis. It raised an interesting question concerning whether or not syphilis of the more virulent sort had been present in the old world before Columbus. By re-examining skeletons from Pompeii and other Classical sites, they claimed that the bone lesions associated with tertiary syphilis were present. My question for the list is, is there any written, medical evidence which supports this claim? I don't recall any and there was none given in the program which makes me very suspicious of the claim that the bone lession were syphilitic. One would think that such a virulent, unpleasant disease would have attracted the notice of ancient physicians. Could such lesions be caused by other diseases? Many thanks in advance for any help on this matter. Sally .