Venereal disease in the Bible.

The existence or otherwise of allusions to syphilis in the books of the Old Testament is of more than passing interest to the venereologist, as it is of importance not only in considering arguments for and against the Columbian theory of the American origin of the disease in Europe, but also in the protracted dispute as to whether yaws and syphilis are or are not the same disease or modifications of the same pathological process. The Columbian theory has had its adherents ever since Frascator gave the name to syphilis in 1530. Of modern writers, Abraham (1936) in Great Britain, and Pusey (1935) in the United States have held essentially this point of view. This argument directs attention to the probable presence of bone syphilis in the skeletons of ancient American Indians, and to the fact that there was a severe, and often fatal, form of the disease which swept through Europe like a storm following the return of Columbus in 1493, and which gained a substantial foothold amongst the troops of both sides at the siege of Naples in 1495. Later, as the army of Charles VII disbanded, syphilis made its appearance in one after another of the European capitals, and was taken further to the Orient by Vasco de Gama in 1498. Supporters of this argument, finding an absence of evidence of the previous existence of syphilis in Europe or in the Near East, find many supposed Biblical or other possible early allusions unacceptable, and any others that are at all suspicious are discounted as referring to soft sore, lymphogranuloma venereum, or other venereal or dermatological complaints. Those holding opposite views utilize the syphilis-' yaws controversy, either by holding that these two 'diseases are one and the same, as suggested by Butler (1936), and Hudson (1946), who consider that both diseases are caused by T. pallidun, or that venereal syphilis has emerged from non-venereal yaws as a result of this organism's fight for survival in the face of improved hygienic and sociological conditions but that now, even today, intermediate forms still exist, as bejel, pinta, and the Australian boomerang leg. It is held that T. pallidum has been with us as long as man himself, and that it probably obtained world-wide distribution in the earliest migrations from Africa and much later crossed the Atlantic again in considerable profusion during the long years of the slave trade. i