1495 Syphilis Outbreak: The Deadly Disease That Swept Across Europe | The Syphilis Enigma | Timeline

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As a Native American, I find it rather strange that this documentary was trying to say that the Natives gave syphilis to the Europeans, because our Native history says it was the other way around.

The music is like syphilis of the ears

I asked my grandfather, who was born in 1930, what the biggest difference was in society between his childhood and now. I was expecting him to say something like the internet or smart phones. He didn’t even have to think about it, and his response surprised me: syphilis. He said syphilis was the biggest difference between his youth and now, because he remembered seeing the syphilitic people on the street, with sores on them and behaving erratically because of the way the disease impacts the brain in later stages. Blew my mind because this was not an answer I expected—we have eradicated it so successfully thanks to antibiotics (which weren’t around in his childhood, obvi) that I think the average person can’t really understand how drastically that impacted our societies in the past.

Man I wish this type of stuff was on the History channel instead of Ice Truckers or some other bull. This is history. Awesome video.

This documentary left out a very important fact about the transmission of syphilis. Syphilis wasn't only transmitted through sexual intercourse. One could easily contract syphilis by touching these terrible syphilis sores called chancres. One could have had accidental contact with any of the chancres on a patient with syphilis, who was in the active stages of this disease. We need to remember that disposable exam gloves were not used in direct patient care and with any activity involving bodily fluids, until the early 1980s. This was probably in response to worldwide HIV/ AIDS and Hepatitis B. Reusable surgical gloves which were cleaned and re-sterilized, were used--, then sized, sterile, disposable wrapped surgical gloves came out later.. These were only used on surgical cases, strict aseptic procedures, and in all internal exams. No gloves were used in starting I.V.s, drawing blood, regular patient care, examining patients, cleansing debris, rashes, vesicles, boils, or chancres, and emptying bedpans, urinals, or Foley catheters, before the 1980s.. Antibiotics only came into use in the later part of the 20th century. Penicillin, discovered by Dr. Fleming in St. Mary's Hospital, London in 1928, and was researched at Oxford. Penicillin was first used on injured Allied soldiers with wounds in World War II. Purified Penicillin in large doses was never used on a live civilian patient until 1942 in New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, U.S.A., when Anne Miller's life was saved, using large doses of Penicillin to treat "blood poisoning" from an infection, following a miscarriage. It was a well known fact that huge numbers of nuns and monks who cared for the diseased, the sick, the poor, and those who were afflicted with syphilis, leprosy, and also, the Bubonic Plague, contracted these diseases of those whom they cared for,. and they usually died from these diseases.

It is shocking in that first skeleton that the person lived so long with Syphilis that those deformaties went into his bone. What a terrible life. So much suffering.

Good God, the person whose skeleton had these horrific lesions suffered unimaginable agony. Hundreds of years later, you can’t help but feel pity.

I was a correctional officer. I watched an inmate go through it all. When his mind began being affected it was quick decline. He began smearing his own feces on the walls of his cell. We transferred him to the isolation unit. I could be talking about his childhood as clear minded as you and me. Then in a moment he would be trying to bite the nurses. After just a few days he died.

I don’t understand the background noises. I’m trying to watch a documentary. Not have nightmares. 😭😭😭

The sound editor was told he would be working on a serious historical medical documentary and immediately thought: "weird wolf howl sound mixed with creepy off note string instrumentals and female Celtic chants all crammed together then played over and over again with a few bells and light awkward percussion will be a great match for this subject matter" Maybe he was inspired by Ross from Friends??

The monks and monasteries were the long term care facilities of that time. It afforded the seclusion and necessary health care services for most likely the rich merchants and when they died what wealth they had was endowed to the monastery. This would definitely explain why so many skeletons had signs of serious disease. We shouldn’t assume these were the bones of the monks but instead their patients. Most healthcare was provided by the local herbal healers or barbers or veterinarians especially for the poor. Trained and licensed doctors or hospitals were rare unless you lived in a large city.

My GGF died of syphilis which he’d picked up while working for the British Army in Ireland. He died of what was then called ‘ the wasting disease ‘ in Rainhill psychiatric hospital ( the largest psychiatric hospital in the North of England ) shortly after admission there .

Came for the syphilis bones, stayed for the strangest soundtrack I've ever witnessed on a documentary.

Next time don't hire someone with syphilis to compose the soundtrack

The fact that human psychology looks for somebody to blame for the matter of sicknesses is truly mind-blowing to me

The dinosaur like screeching when they show Syphilis from a microscope view is HILARIOUSLY unexpected. 😂💀

Is that godawful noise supposed to be victims of tertiary syphilis screaming as they die in agony? Because it sounds like a deranged attempt at a pterodactyl scream...

I’m always amazed at the number of scientists and historians who refuse to believe any information that doesn’t conform to their own personal viewpoint. As lifelong students of these fields we are supposed to be open minded- and yet so many aren’t! That is why history and science often moves at such a slow pace.

One thing to keep in mind is that Colombus wasn't the first time the old and new worlds had collided. The Vikings, the Chinese, and the Polynesians all visited the Americas before Colombus.