Overview

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection (STI) that initially causes genital ulcers (sores). If untreated, these ulcers can then lead to more serious symptoms of infection.

An ancient disease, syphilis is still of major importance today. Although syphilis rates in the United States declined by almost 90 percent from 1990 to 2000, the number of cases rose from 5,979 in 2000 to 7,980 in 2004. In a single year, from 2003 to 2004, the number of syphilis cases jumped 8 percent.

There also was a dramatic change in whom the disease affects. Between 2002 and 2003, the number of cases in men increased 13.5 percent, reflecting an increase in syphilis in men who have sex with men. During the same time the number of cases in women declined by 27.3 percent.

Syphilis also disproportionately affects African Americans, who represent 41 percent of all cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

HIV infection and syphilis are linked. Syphilis increases the risk of transmitting as well as getting infected with HIV.

History of Syphilis 

The Church adopted the sexual abstinence as a remedy in order to avoid the  syphilis and Pope Paul IV, around to the half of the '500, decreed with an edict  an evicting from Rome and all the Papal State of the prostitutes. 

In  Europe the disease was manifested in epidemic shape in Italy, 1494,
with  sieges of Naples by the French troops on the orders of Charles VIII 
who died  to the age of 28 years, possibly from cerebral syphilis (G. Del Guerra).
A  group of approximately 800 prostitutes was aggregated to the French
troops  and not there is doubt that just the dissemination
of the prostitutes in the  armies and between the 
population contributed in maximum part to  disseminate
the syphilis that in Italy was called
"mal francese" while for  the French it was "mal napolitain".

In Rome, towards the end of the '400,  clandestines
excluding, were available approximately 6800 prostitutes.
In  Venice the prostitutes were forced to walk with a yellow handkerchief 
around  the neck like sign of acknowledgment.

It was the sexual abstinence that the  Church adopted as a remedy in order to avoid
such disease and Pope Paul IV,  around to the half of the '500, 
decreed with an edict an evicting from Rome  and all the Papal State of the prostitutes.
The popular rebellion forced the  Church to find a
center to pratice prostitution across Tevere: today  Trastevere.
In the " De preservatione a carie gallica" of 1555, Gabriele  Falloppia devised one
individual protection against syphilis consisting in  one patch of linen to shape of
bag "ad mensuram glandis" soaked with mercury:  it was the forerunner of the
modern condom.

That nevertheless the disease  continued to claim victims in all social ranks,
including clergy and  nobility. Illustrious sick they were Francesco I King
of France and Pope  Giulio II. The religious make appeal to the protecting of
Saint Giobbe and  Saint Dionigi, the astrologers to the study of planets tryng 
remedy to the  negative conjunction of Jupiter with Saturn in the sign of Scorpion, 
even  therapeutics powers were attributed to the wood of Guaiaco of the Antilles, 
called "Saint wood".

Five centuries after the epidemic of syphilis  another venereal disease is spreading,
finding current medicine completely  unprepared, it has made the Church call again 
for sexual abstinence, the  sanctimonious people speak of divine punishment,
what the men of the 20th  century have called AIDS.