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Preparation of a remedy based on guayaco.
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 with the symptoms caused by the disease. That's how 10 years have passed.
"(All over the body) there are boils of size and appearance similar to those of an acorn, they give off a stench so stinking and stinking that the one who feels it thinks itself infected, the color of the pustules is dark green, seeing them is worse than feeling the pain they inflict, even if the sensation resembles a chimney fire. "
This was the description of the patient of its ills.
It is estimated that by the decade of 1490 the European population has recovered deaths caused by the plague, also known as Death One in three people died of this disease throughout the continent.
With the increase in population came prosperity.But all was not positive. [19659007] War was endemic, famines occurred frequently … and unknown diseases began to appear
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Illustrations of the time they represented the lethality of the disease.
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 with a new disease.
Nobody had seen anything like it . The doctors of the time did not find any 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 sexual 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, all ran the risk of catching it. He was in the brothel but also in the castle .
Kings Francisco I and Enrique III of France, as well as the emperor Carlos V, are thought to have suffered from the disease. It is believed that neither the monks nor the clerics escaped the contagion.
Hierarchy does not matter. Cardinals, bishops and even the popes Alexander VI and Julius II suffered it.
The rapidity with which it spreads reveals much about the sexual habits of society at that time.
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It was considered that women were responsible for trying the poor and transmitting the disease to them .
History
The French, of course, called it Neapolitan disease. But the rest referred to her as the French disease. Initially, it did not have a technical name.
In the end, a French doctor suggested calling it " venereal disease " because at that time it was considered that his main cause was the act of Love, which, in turn, was linked with the goddess Venus.
The epidemic caused by syphilis was different from that seen previously : it was not concentrated in a particular area or related to the season of the year.
Everyone could get sick. And once that has happened, it seems that the person has never recovered. There was no place where he could escape to save himself.
If the ordeal was difficult to bear the day, the night was worse. Those who suffered it shouted continuously because of the pain they felt in their bones.
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Condoms were used for the first time in the sixteenth century to combat the disease.
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 in dealing with it was to repent and pray for divine protection.
God, however, sent signals in other ways. Astrologers of the time claimed that the thing happened had relation with two eclipses of sun and with fluencia of Saturn and Mars.
"The rains that fell in the year in all the countries were so copious, that the earth was contaminated by stagnant water, it was not surprising that the disease was introduced, "said a professor of medicine at the time.
The conjunction of stars contaminated the climate, which in turn caused a poisonous rot of the air. The consequence was the putrefaction of the human body.
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One of the remedies that was used when the disease began to to spread was mercury.
Hope
It was believed that mercury was the cure 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. Breathe the hot mercury gas.
Until a new remedy appeared in 1517: guayaco, a shrub found in Haiti. Supposedly, it was what the natives of the island used.
Wood shavings were simmered in the water and the liquid was drunk twice a day. The complete treatment included spending 30 days in an extremely hot room to sweat and kick the disease.
At the same time, a relationship between syphilis and divine punishment was established by personal sin and not collective. The person has been infected by having had an unlawful sexual relationship.
In this context, women were the ones who transmitted the disease and tried the poor in the manner of Adam and Eve.
Stigma also affected children whose parents suffered from syphilis because it was an inherited disease. Whole generations considered themselves cursed.
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The bacterium causing syphilis was first discovered in 1905.
America or Europe?
The contemporaries thought that it was a new disease.
Once it was detected that it was transmitted from person to person, it was assumed that it had to come from a particular place, and not because of the time.
It was believed that he had arrived in Europe with the sailors who came back from America with Christopher Columbus.
They reportedly docked in Barcelona, 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 originally from Europe that had emerged with a new virulence.
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The definitive cure came with penicillin.
The Remedy
It is difficult to know if the debate can be resolved. But there is certainty about certain aspects. The decades before and after 1500 were a big change in European society.
Urban life, changes and search for places to live, new war techniques and changes in sexual behavior.
The environment of the inhabitants of this time was constantly changing. And this, in general, increases the incidence of diseases. The emergence of new epidemics was therefore inevitable.
Syphilis arrived and remained, spreading, especially during wartime.
With the advent of modern medicine, the bacteria 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 for the disease was found.
The cries of the night stopped.
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