Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain
Speaker 1: stuff luring vogel bomb here. William Shakespeare mentioned diseases often
Speaker 1: in his plays, probably because he was literally surrounded by them,
Speaker 1: I mean, aren't we all. But during his London based
Speaker 1: lifetime in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds, such notorious illnesses
Speaker 1: as the bubonic plague, typhus, and malaria ravaged citizens, all
Speaker 1: made more potent and deadly by rodents, over crowding and
Speaker 1: virtually non existent sanitation systems. Also striking fear into the
Speaker 1: hearts of just about everyone were small pox and the
Speaker 1: Great pox, known today as syphilis. The two conditions actually
Speaker 1: present similar rashes, despite being different in terms of type
Speaker 1: of infection and transmission. Smallpox is a virus spread by breathing.
Speaker 1: Syphilis is bacterial and almost always sexually transmitted. The hallmark
Speaker 1: of both diseases was a body riddled with pustules, also
Speaker 1: known as pox. It felt the people to distinguish between
Speaker 1: these horrors. Thus syphilis became known as the Great pox,
Speaker 1: not because the pock marks of syphilis were larger than
Speaker 1: those of smallpox, but rather because, in the fifteen to
Speaker 1: seventeenth centuries, it was the greater fear. Syphilis was likely
Speaker 1: introduced to Europe when Christopher Columbus, a little that guy
Speaker 1: and his crew brought it back from the New World
Speaker 1: in fourteen nine three. Although there are other theories, the
Speaker 1: timing is definitely suspect. The pandemic began in Europe pretty
Speaker 1: much right after they returned, killing many. Even those who
Speaker 1: were lucky enough to survive were typically covered in scars
Speaker 1: and went blind. Of course, the Europeans, for their part,
Speaker 1: left behind smallpox and other diseases in the New World,
Speaker 1: sometimes intentionally, which how long with slavery, would wipe out
Speaker 1: millions of Native Americans. Fortunately, smallpox has now been eradicated
Speaker 1: by vaccine, and we have penicillin to treat syphilis. Shakespeare's
Speaker 1: writings indicate an interest in syphilis, such as in the
Speaker 1: play tim And of Athens, where he references the use
Speaker 1: of inhaled vaporized mercury salts, a common treatment for the
Speaker 1: disease at the time. In fact, one of his best
Speaker 1: known quotes was originally a reference to syphilis. A plague
Speaker 1: on both your houses from Romeo and Juliet was first
Speaker 1: a pox on both your houses. Thanks to multiple references
Speaker 1: of syphilis, and his works. Historians have wondered whether Shakespeare
Speaker 1: himself was infected. Known for being a little bit of
Speaker 1: a hustler, his signature during the last years of his
Speaker 1: life indicates that he experienced a tremor, which is a
Speaker 1: common side effect of mercury poisoning, which, as we said,
Speaker 1: was the treatment of choice for syphilis. Of course, any
Speaker 1: number of physical ailments can cause a tremor, so it's
Speaker 1: unlikely that this posthumous diagnosis will ever be confirmed. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was written by Alia Hoyt and produced by Tyler Clang.
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