The famous explorer has spread disease?

If world history honors Christopher Columbus as the greatest explorer of all time, then world medicine put his name on the suspect list as one of the first to carry dangerous syphilis from Europe. America spread throughout Europe, causing a terrible pandemic that killed tens of thousands of people in the Old Middle Ages world.

The disease follows the adventurers' feet

Christopher Columbus is listed as the most mysterious historical figure perhaps for many reasons. For more than 500 years, people have not only argued about his origins, death and grave but also a public dispute as well as the crime of a talented explorer thought to have discovered America. in this year 1492.

According to historical records, after first arriving in the Americas, Christopher Columbus explored at least 3 more times with his crew returning to this land. Many leading epidemiologists and anthropologists believe that it is the meeting and interaction between explorers and sailors from Europe with the people of the Americas during this time that led to the occurrence of terrible epidemics for the first time with indigenous people. For example, half of the Hispaniola population died of smallpox in 1518. Smallpox also ravaged Mexico in the 1520s (Tenochtitlan alone had more than 150,000 deaths, including the monarch). The disease also appeared for the first time in Peru in the 1530s. Measles killed more than two million native Mexican people in the 1600s. Large outbreaks occurred after the "landings". of adventurers from Europe for a long time. That makes indigenous people in the New World region have a reason to accuse European explorers and conquests that have spread diseases to the New World, even making skin tribes Red fell into extinction by disease (90% of Indians died of illness when two ethnic groups collided with each other, not to mention armed conflicts).

According to the interpretation of epidemiologists and anthropologists, over the centuries, Europeans have achieved high immunity to diseases such as smallpox, bubonic plague, measles . while indigenous peoples America does not have such capabilities. When there is contact in favorable conditions and poor immunity, pathogens have spread immediately and developed strongly, causing pandemics to massacre indigenous peoples in the New World.

Similarly, in this way, the adventurers themselves were the first to bring tropical bacteria and some sexually transmitted diseases to Europe, in particular, dangerous bacteria. cholera and syphilis. Christopher Columbus and his sailors were the first to be suspected of bringing syphilis from America to Europe after the first successful expedition, which later spread the disease. in Europe a pandemic, robbing many people.

Christopher Columbus.

Evidence of guilty of Columbus

So far there has been a lot of evidence of high affirmative value to the above suspicion. The team led by paleontologist Bruce Rothschild of the Center of the Northeast in Ohio State, examined 688 bones buried in cemeteries across Italy. They were from the Bronze Age until the plague in the years 1485-1486. These skeletons are examined to look for specific bone traces for arthritis, gout, and Treponema pallidum - a syphilis. Treponema pallidum twists spread mainly through sex, the initial symptoms of the disease are then soreness, fever and eventually can cause blindness, paralysis and dementia. The disease leaves scars and deforms bone.

Results showed that no bones in Italy had signs of syphilis. Bruce Rothschild said: "Before Columbus, Italy was like a virgin. Arthritis and syphilis did not exist." The results support the view that these are diseases originating in the New World. So there is no reason not to suspect that Columbus and his sailors were infected with syphilis in the New World (America) and after returning from the New World spread disease in Europe.

The study, published in January 2008 by the American journals, revived the decades-long debate about the origins of syphilis, and also gave a theoretical proof. The most admired so far is related to the theory that the first explorer discovered America brought syphilis into Europe. The results of the study are also consistent with previous claims by the scientific community: There is no evidence of the existence of syphilis in the Old World (Europe, Asia and Europe). Africa) before Columbus. While 687 skeletons dating from 400-2,000 years belong to eight different ethnic groups in the New World, Rothschild examined, syphilis signs exist in many skeletons that are at least 800 years old. This proves that syphilis has been present in the Americas much earlier than when it first appeared in Europe.

Another genetic study of the history of syphilis previously conducted by biologists at Emory University in Atlanta has also accused the finder of Christopher Columbus. Analysis of the family tree genome structure of syphilis shows that the closest relative of this infectious disease is a disease that occurs in South America causing scabies and infection by a similar virus! Dr. Kristin Harper, a member of the research team, said: "What we found is that there is a new World-to-World infection and this recent infection has only occurred in human history. ". Combined with the first pandemic pandemic data in European history that began in the mid-15th century - coinciding with the time when Christopher Columbus and his expedition returned to glory in 1495, we had more evidence. to assert the hypothesis that Columbus and his crew members were both great and guilty!