What Was The Great Pox?

You've heard of smallpox, but what was the great pox? And did Shakespeare have it? Learn about the spread of (spoiler alert) syphilis in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain
stuff luring vogel bomb here. William Shakespeare mentioned diseases often
in his plays, probably because he was literally surrounded by them,
I mean, aren't we all. But during his London based
lifetime in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds, such notorious illnesses
as the bubonic plague, typhus, and malaria ravaged citizens, all

(00:25):
made more potent and deadly by rodents, over crowding and
virtually non existent sanitation systems. Also striking fear into the
hearts of just about everyone were small pox and the
Great pox, known today as syphilis. The two conditions actually
present similar rashes, despite being different in terms of type
of infection and transmission. Smallpox is a virus spread by breathing.

(00:49):
Syphilis is bacterial and almost always sexually transmitted. The hallmark
of both diseases was a body riddled with pustules, also
known as pox. It felt the people to distinguish between
these horrors. Thus syphilis became known as the Great pox,
not because the pock marks of syphilis were larger than
those of smallpox, but rather because, in the fifteen to

(01:10):
seventeenth centuries, it was the greater fear. Syphilis was likely
introduced to Europe when Christopher Columbus, a little that guy
and his crew brought it back from the New World
in fourteen nine three. Although there are other theories, the
timing is definitely suspect. The pandemic began in Europe pretty
much right after they returned, killing many. Even those who

(01:30):
were lucky enough to survive were typically covered in scars
and went blind. Of course, the Europeans, for their part,
left behind smallpox and other diseases in the New World,
sometimes intentionally, which how long with slavery, would wipe out
millions of Native Americans. Fortunately, smallpox has now been eradicated
by vaccine, and we have penicillin to treat syphilis. Shakespeare's

(01:51):
writings indicate an interest in syphilis, such as in the
play tim And of Athens, where he references the use
of inhaled vaporized mercury salts, a common treatment for the
disease at the time. In fact, one of his best
known quotes was originally a reference to syphilis. A plague
on both your houses from Romeo and Juliet was first
a pox on both your houses. Thanks to multiple references

(02:13):
of syphilis, and his works. Historians have wondered whether Shakespeare
himself was infected. Known for being a little bit of
a hustler, his signature during the last years of his
life indicates that he experienced a tremor, which is a
common side effect of mercury poisoning, which, as we said,
was the treatment of choice for syphilis. Of course, any
number of physical ailments can cause a tremor, so it's

(02:34):
unlikely that this posthumous diagnosis will ever be confirmed. Today's
episode was written by Alia Hoyt and produced by Tyler Clang.
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(02:56):
Stuff Works dot com.