Comments on: Christopher Columbus’ Package of Love, Syphilis

By: debra barton

debra barton — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:04:31 +0000

columbus and party visted s few places before coming to america didnt they? possibly picking up syphilis somewhere else.

By: Shane Anderson

Shane Anderson — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:12:23 +0000

Jeffrey Dahmer is a cannibal, next time you compare somebody to someone else then get it right

By: Aishah Bowron

Aishah Bowron — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:54:55 +0000

Christopher Columbus is no hero !. He is a serial killer, a genocidal mass murderer !. He is a guy who brought death and destruction to the New World. He is the fifteenth century John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer.

By: Kambiz

Kambiz — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:30:04 +0000

Josephine,

It is possible that other people brought the disease over but since the phylogenetic tree shows that European strains of syphilis is 500 years old and Columbus is presumably the only guy that came to the Americas. Since we’re only talking about 4 base pair differences, I would also consider the possibility that the disease spontaneously developed in Europe based off of an earlier ancestral pathogen, such as Yaws, that coulda been transfered by other cross-Atlantic populations. Bacteria are capable of mutating a lot and sharing sequences of DNA with one another.

I just find it funny that it seems like everyone is out to give Columbus a bad wrap. Who woulda known that by ‘finding’ the Americas you also go get an honorable mention by the scientific community that you brought over a venereal disease?

By: archaeozoo

archaeozoo — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:45:27 +0000

I’m intrigued by this study because this is one of those questions that has been bouncing around between palaeopathologists for some time now. I personally think it will be hard to ever say 100% for definite that it was Columbus’ crew, or that it was not, but it might be that we can be more accurate about the likelihood.

By: anthro.pophago.us snippets of media, anthropology, design, culture and politics.

anthro.pophago.us snippets of media, anthropology, design, culture and politics. — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:10:59 +0000

[...] Christopher Columbus’ Package of Love, Syphilis [...]

By: Josephine

Josephine — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:35:04 +0000

Have the people conducting the study given the other theories of possible discoverers of the Americas any thought? Can it not be so that a people different from Colombus and his crew brought syphilis to the old world and that the epidemic only struck at the same time as Columbus’ arrival home, by coincidence?