Origin of Syphilis

Abstract

D. Shrewsbury advanced the (to me) novel suggestion that syphilis in its present form, which undoubtedly caused great alarm to health authorities in Europe in the late 90s of the 15th century, was due to the mutation about 1493 of a treponeme which had hitherto caused a milder form of treponematosis, such as Sibbens in Scotland and, under many other names, in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Thus, as I understood him, he gave T. pallidum a pedigree less than 500 years old with as parent a milder pathogen which had inhabited the world since pre-historic times.