Pre‐Columbian congenital syphilis from the late antiquity in France

Abstract

Today, exactly 500 years after the discovery of America, there is still a lot of controversy about the history of syphilis in Europe, especially about the Columbian and pre-Columbian hypotheses. This paper presents evidence for the presence of venereal treponematosis in the late Antiquity in France.The case that we examined comes from the necropolis of Costebelle (3rd-5th centuries AD; Hyeres, Var, France). Grave no. 1 contained the well-preserved skeleton of a relatively old woman with the skeletal remains of an approximately 7-month-old fetus in her pelvic cavity.The osseous lesions of the fetal remains can be described in four groups: periosteal appositions on the skull vault (frontal and parietal); signs of periostitis on the long bones (bilateral cortical irregularities, predominantly on the left side, which affect first of all tibiae, femora, fibulae, radii and humeri, particularly in the metaphyseal region); some infraperiosteal detachment reminiscent of an infraperiosteal haematoma surrounding the distal extremity of the left forearm and the left hand; and finally, the irregular lesions of the humeral distal and proximal tibia1 metaphyses reminded us radiologically of Wimberger's signs.The most probable diagnosis of all the lesions mentioned above is that of a precocious congenital syphilis. This case consists of an argument against the epidemiological theories about the migration of Treponema pallidurn from the New World back to the Old World starting at the end of the 15th century.

Leprosy in a skeleton from the 7th century necropolis of Vicenne-Campochiaro (Molise, Italy)

“…In view of the numerous pre-Columbian Old World cases recently published (Pálfi et al, 1992;Mays et al, 2002;Mitchell, 2003), we may also discuss treponemal diseases since, like leprosy, they can lead to destruction of the nose and to bony changes in the lower legs and feet. Treponemal diseases are granulomatous infections caused by spirochetes of the genus Treponema.…”

Nonspecific Infection in Paleopathology: Interpreting Periosteal Reactions

“…In the paleopathological literature, periosteal new bone production has occasionally been mentioned as a component of specific infectious diseases such as tuberculosis (Kelly and Micozzi 1984;Pfeiffer 1991;Kelly et al 1994;Roberts et al 1994), the treponematoses (Hackett 1976(Hackett , 1978(Hackett , 1983Elting and Starna 1984;Reichs 1989;Palfi et al 1992;Hutchinson 1993;Rothschild and Heathcote 1993;Lewis 1994;Schermer et al 1994;Mansilla and Pijoan 1995) and leprosy (Lewis et al 1995;Roberts and Manchester 1995). Sporadically, periosteal reactions have been mentioned in association with syndromes such as hypertrophic osteoarthropathy (Fennell and (Cook 1976) Fiber-bone periostitis and sclerotic periostitis 1 Normal.…”

Higoumenakis’ sign in the diagnosis of congenital syphilis in anthropological specimens

“…In fact, even within the clinical scenario, the disease is so diverse (la grande simulatrice) that no single criterion can be independently applied for a clinical diagnosis and the actual definite decision can only be provided via serological / molecular testing, which, however, is not available in archaeological / anthropological samples [6,7,10]. In addition, HS may also be significant for the definite establishment of the presence of congenital syphilis in the pre-Columbian ancient Greek world and the Old World in general, as well as for the differential diagnosis between syphilis and other variants of treponemal / spirochete infections [2,3,11,28]. A thorough osteoarcheological study of the specimens at the Museum of London is very likely to yield an answer to this hypothesis.…”