Syphilis

Syphilis (historically called lues) is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that is caused by a spirochaete bacterium, Treponema pallidum. Syphilis has many alternate names, such as: Miss Siff, the Pox, and has been given many national attributions, e.g. the French disease or the English disease.

References

• From mercury to malaria to penicillin: The history of the treatment of syphilis at the Mayo Clinic, 1916–1955
• Baker, Brenda: Armelagos, George. The Origin and Antiquity of Syphilis: Paleopathological Diagnoses and Interpretation. Current Anthropology 29 (1998).
• Alfred Crosby. The Early History of Syphilis: A Reappraisal. American Anthropologist, Vol 71 (1969).
• McNeill, William H. "Plagues and People." Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., New York, NY, 1976, ISBN 0-385-12122-9.
• Sacks, Oliver W. "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" (ISBN 0684853949) — contains a chapter on an elderly woman treated in the early stages of tertiary syphilis from an infection decades earlier.