Comments on: Science Tuesday: Transatlantic STDs

By: Science Tuesday: In praise of open access and nosy parents | chrisdellavedova.com

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:15:30 +0000

[...] science, but they often publish thought provoking, beautifully designed or controversial papers. One of my favorite Science Tuesday posts was from a PLoS journal discussing the origins of syphilis – great [...]

By: CDV

CDV — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:10:20 +0000

Yeah, Jamie, I gotta say we academic scientists are literally rolling in Sterling over here…

By: Not Afraid To Use It

Not Afraid To Use It — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 04:34:31 +0000

What a great post! As soon as I started reading it I KNEW you were going to be talking about syphilis. That was what I loved about teaching high school in Sweden. I was able to talk about that in the classroom and not worry about getting sued or sacked because of outraged parents. Thanks for the great read–it made me miss teaching my classes.

By: alice

alice — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:06:00 +0000

Fascinating stuff!

By: Jamie

Jamie — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:21:38 +0000

Chris, I liked your comment you sent via email better: ” So are you trying to say that you shouldn’t all be sacked?” Some of us should be sacked, and the rest would be happy if our remuneration was even 1/2 that of scientists!

Matthew, yes, there are two documented cases of first the English and then the Americans intentionally giving blankets infested with smallpox to Native Americans. Both occur fairly late in the story of conquest, when Europeans had a vague idea about disease and how it is spread.

And Chris, I was probably too mean in my first post. There are some historians (though only a few) who don’t think syphilis came from the Americas, since they think the Indians were perfect people with no war, disease, or greed. In other words, they don’t think the Indians were human beings. Of course, as this group doesn’t look at evidence, your scientists’ finding will not convince them.

By: Harlekwin

Harlekwin — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:04:34 +0000

I’m neither a scientist or historian, but I can certainly appreciate this research and the findings. The thought that came to mind after reading this is that when it came to disease and suffering, the “conquerers” unwittingly opened a huge Pandora’s box.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:00:44 +0000

I heard somewhere once that the decimation of Native Americans by small pox wasn’t completely by accident. In an effort of fake good will, frontiersman would exchange blankets for goods with Native Americans, but purposely gave blankets that were previously used by people with small pox (or whatever disease they had), knowing full well of the contagiousness of the disease.

I don’t know how much truth there is in that. I think I saw it on a PBS special.

By: CDV

CDV — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:55:24 +0000

I appear to have riled up a historian…

By: Jamie

Jamie — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:52:34 +0000

Well, I have been teaching that syphilis originated in the New World for 10 years now, so I think your scientists just added some more confirmation for something already widely accepted by most humanists. The historian will comment that your comparison of Pizarro and Mississippi leads to the misleading inference that the Spanish practiced genocide in Central and South America, but it was just an accident that all the Indians died in English North America. The Spanish, for all their brutality, wanted to maintain the Indians as a labor force and as subject Christians, and thus were horrified when they died of disease. The English, with their Puritan religious zealots, actively wanted to exterminate Native Americans. Cotton Mather applauded the ravages of smallpox among the Indians in New England, noting that the death of those “pernicious creatures” would make way for “better growth.”