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.

Syphilis in art and literature

In 1530, Girolamo Fracastoro, a physician and poet, wrote a poem from which syphilis derived its name.

Related Topics:
1530 - Girolamo Fracastoro

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There are references to syphilis in William Shakespeare's play Measure for Measure, particularly in a number of early passages spoken by the character Lucio, whose name, suggesting light and truth, is meant to indicate that he is to be taken seriously. For example Lucio says " thy bones are hollow"; this is a reference to the brittleness of bones engendered by the use of mercury which was then widely used to treat syphilis.

Related Topics:
William Shakespeare - Play - Measure for Measure - Mercury

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In Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, the character Edward Rochester's first wife, Bertha, is characterised as suffering from the advanced stages of syphilitic infection, general paresis of the insane, and there is plenty of corroborative evidence within the text to substantiate this view.

Related Topics:
Charlotte Brontë - Novel - Jane Eyre

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Henrik Ibsen's controversial (at the time) play Ghosts has a young man who is suffering from a mysterious unnamed disease. Though it is never named, the events of the play make it plain that this is syphilis, an inheritance from his dissolute father. Dr Rank in Ibsen's play A Doll's House also has inherited syphilis.

Related Topics:
Henrik Ibsen - Ghosts - A Doll's House

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The novel Candide by Voltaire describes Candide's mentor and teacher, Pangloss, as having contracted syphilis from a maidservant he slept with; the syphilis has ravaged and deformed his body. Pangloss explains to Candide that syphilis is 'necessary in the best of worlds' because the line of infection - which he explains - leads back to Christopher Columbus. If Columbus had not sailed to America and brought back syphilis, Pangloss states, the Europeans would not have been able to enjoy 'New World wonders' such as chocolate. (One of the purposes of the novel was to satirize Pangloss's disingenuous rose-tinted viewpoint.) Pangloss eventually loses an eye and an ear to the syphilis before he is cured.

Related Topics:
Candide - Voltaire - Christopher Columbus

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The artist Kees van Dongen produced a series of illustrations for the anarchist publication L'Assiette au Beurre showing the descent of a young prostitute from poverty to her death from syphilis as a criticism of the social order at the end of the 19th century.

Related Topics:
Kees van Dongen - Anarchist - L'Assiette au Beurre - 19th century

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Also, in Charles Dickens' novel Tale of Two Cities, references are made that allude to the main character, Sydney Carton, having syphilis.

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Mention must be made of the anonymous American medical students' description of syphilis in a series of early 20th-century American limericks, using medical terminology to ghastly comic effect. It was first published in Journal of the American Medical Association January 1942: http://www.ucolick.org/~randi/aecom/syphilis.txt

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