Venereal Disease Among Native Americans

[Larry the Kid]

I'm sure VD was somewhat widespread among white westerners.  How did this affect natives?  Was there any sort of VD before Europeans arrived?

[Buck Grizzly]

There is evidence in a new study published on origin of syphilis says that the sexually transmitted disease was carried to Europe aboard the Christopher Columbus' expedition.

　

　

You can Google it, but to be honest, personally, I haven't got a clue.

[Larry the Kid]

Not goin' anywhere.  Just curious.  Read real close, didn't ask or mention sexual habits.

[Bill]

Larry I hate to say it but it is typical of some who always find the need to read into conversations.  With that said it this makes one wonder what diseases did Europeans contract from native Americans....

[Larry the Kid]

If ya don't like it...don't read it.

[MIKE Berger]

I'ts not offensive to me..I'm not offended by knowledge.

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

Syphilis was endemic to the Taino tribe of the Caribbean.  They'd had it so long they were actually immune to it, but Taino women were carriers.  Columbus' sailors had been at sea about 3 months.  What does a sailor do when he gets shore leave after a long and arduous voyage?  He finds a woman!  They also found syphilis and returned it to Europe. Most of the other veneral diseases were already present there, but syphilis first showed up in Europe in the late 1490s/ealy 1500s, first in Spain and Portugal, then spread.

 

Hickok was almost stone blind from syphilis and probably would have died of it in the next few years if McCall hadn't shot him.  The common frontier euphemism for syphilis was 'the calamity,' since there was no known cure for it.  Martha Jane Canary wasn't known as 'Calamity Jane' for no reason, though it's doubtful Hickok contracted it from her.

[Steve McCarty]

I agree with Charlie.  Syphilis was carred from here to there and not the other way round.  I don't know about the "other" diseases though.

I study the Ancient World, Greece, Rome, pre-Stoneheng England.  I read Cicero (not in the original, wish I could). I have yet to find a reference to VD in the Ancient World.  Certainly, if it had existed, the Romans would have written about it.  They did not.

Moreover, when Columbus' men returned they brought Syphilis with them and it became a very severe epidemic in Europe.  There was no cure or immunity.  There was within the Indian community over here. 

As far as I can tell,VD was an American invention. Europeans, of course; traded measles, whooping caugh, small pox, and the common cold for VD.  I am not sure who got the worst of it. Disease killed a lot of Indians here, as did syphilis in Europe.  Booze was also a big problem over here within the Indian community, and it still is.  They had no experience with strong drink. It has something to do with their metabolisem. Indian people still do not handle strong drink well.  That's all the Irish are good for! LOL.....(I'm all Irish and proud of it.)    

 

[Stan H]

This has given me a reason to surf the web even more than I usually do.

 

The one recurring theme I have come across is that no one really knows for certain the origins of venereal disease in Europeans or any where else.

 

Venereal herpes was identified in ancient Greece. If that was the case, I believe other forms of VD was also prevalent.

 

A major factor, as I have learned, is the lack of understanding of any disease including VD. If there was no understanding, it would lead one to assume there was no identifying it as what it actually was. Even syphilis was not identified until the 1800's for what is was, a sexually transmitted disease. Pox was a common name for it, and it was mostly ascribed to prostitutes, sailors, and vagabonds.

 

There are many claims and suppositions out there that ascribe syphillis to the inhabitants of the new world, brought to Europe by sailors, but there are also those who do not subscribe to this theory.

 

Again, I say, because of ignorace, superstition, and yes, religious beliefs, VD was an unknown disease with an unknown cause, for many years throughout the world. Where and when it started is as hard to prove as the beginning of any disease.