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In 1509, the young German soldier Ulrich von Hutten contracted an illness unknown at the time while he was in Italy.
The poor man was dying of symptoms caused by the disease. That's how it happened 10 years ago
"(Throughout the body) there are boils, similar in size and appearance to an acorn, they emit a stench so stinking and stinking that the one who feels it, thinks that she is infected.The color of the pustules is dark green, seeing them is worse than feeling the pain that they inflict, even though the sensation looks like lengthen on fire. "
This was the patient's description of his ailments.
It is estimated that in the nineteenth 1490 the European population had recovered deaths caused by the plague, also known as the Black Death. One in three is dead because of the disease on the whole continent.
With the increase of the population, prosperity has arrived. But not everything was positive.
War was endemic, famines occurred frequently … and unknown diseases began to appear.
The Beginning
At the beginning of 1495, King Charles VIII of France invaded Naples trying to claim his right to this kingdom. But the troops began to be infected by a new disease
No one had seen anything like it . Doctors of the time found no reference in the old medical books.
This worried the population as much as HIV when it was discovered in the 80s of the last century.
He had a similarity with this disease: it was transmitted by badual contact.
It was syphilis .
People were terrified because they were spreading very fast. He arrived in Scotland, Hungary and Russia.
With the exception of the elderly and children, everyone ran the risk of catching it. It was in the brothel but also in the castle .
It is believed that the Kings Francisco I and Henry III of France, as well as the Emperor Charles V, suffered from the disease. It is believed that neither the monks nor the clerics escaped the contagion.
Hierarchy does not matter. The Cardinals, Bishops and even the Popes Alexander VI and Julius II suffered it.
The speed with which it spread revealed much about the badual habits of society at that time.
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History
The French, of course, called it Neapolitan disease. But the rest referred to her as the French disease. In the beginning, he had no technical name
Finally, a French doctor suggested to refer to it as the "venereal disease " because at that time it was considered that his main cause was the act of love. , in turn, was linked to the goddess Venus.
The epidemic caused by syphilis was different from that seen previously : it was not concentrated in a particular area or station-bound year
Everyone was at risk to get sick. And once that has happened, it seems that the person has never recovered. There was nowhere to escape to be saved.
If torture was difficult to bear during the day, the night was worse. Those who suffered it continuously shouted because of the pain they felt in their bones.
Spatial rot
What was the cause of the disease? It was thought that it was a punishment of God for sins committed by society.
So the first step was to repent and pray for God's protection.
God, however, sent signs through other means The astrologers of the time claimed that the thing happened had to do with two eclipses of the sun and with fluencia ] of Saturn and Mars.
"The rains that fell in the year in all the countries were so copious, that the land was contaminated by stagnant water." It was not surprising that the disease it was presented, "said a professor of medicine at the time.
The conjunction of stars contaminated the climate, which in turn caused toxic air rot. The consequence was the putrefaction of the human body.
Hope
It was believed that mercury was the remedy for syphilis. It was common to use it to treat skin problems at that time. And that was the treatment that was recommended to the German soldier. Breathing hot mercury
But healing was worse than illness . The patients salivated uncontrollably, their teeth fell and they lost their reason. However, it continued to be used for many years, both inside and out.
Until a new remedy appears in 1517: guayaco, a shrub found in Haiti. Reportedly, that was what natives of the island were using.
Wood shavings were simmering in the water and the liquid was drunk twice a day. The complete treatment consisted of spending 30 days in an extremely hot room to sweat and get rid of the disease.
At the same time, a relationship between syphilis and divine punishment was established by personal sin and not collective. . The person was infected with an illicit badual relationship
In this context, women were the ones who transmitted the disease and tried the poor in the style of Adam and Eve.
Stigma also affected children whose parents suffered from syphilis because it was an inherited disorder. Whole generations considered themselves cursed.
America or Europe?
Contemporaries thought that it was a new disease.
Once it was detected that it was transmitted from person to person, it was badumed that it had to come from a particular place. and not because of the temperature
It was believed that he had arrived in Europe with the sailors who came back from America with Christopher Columbus
Apparently docked in Barcelona, they joined the troops in Naples and the prostitutes who followed the army took care of the rest.
But American medical historians never liked this theory, so they presented archeological evidence to prove that syphilis was an old disease originating in Europe that had appeared with a new virulence.
The Remedy
It is unclear whether the debate can be resolved. But there is certainty about certain aspects. The decades before and after the 1500s were great changes in European society.
Urban life, changes and search for places to live, new techniques of war and changes in badual behavior.
The environment of the inhabitants from that moment on, it has been constantly modified. And this, in general, increases the incidence of diseases. Thus the emergence of new epidemics was probably inevitable.
Syphilis arrived and remained, spreading, especially in wartime.
With the arrival of modern medicine the bacterium that causes the disease was identified in 1905. And in 1910 the first effective treatment was discovered.
But it was only in 1943, with the discovery of penicillin, that the cure was found. 19659002] The cries of the night have stopped.
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