Columbian Exchange Essay

Columbian Exchange Essay

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Introduction

Columbian Exchange started when Columbus first arrived in the Americas in 1492. As Earle (2012) notes that “Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no paprika in Hungary, no tomatoes in Italy, no coffee in Colombia, no pineapples in Hawaii, no rubber trees in Africa, no cattle in Texas, no donkeys in Mexico, no chilli peppers in Thailand and India, no cigarettes in France, and no chocolate in Switzerland.”, Columbian Exchange is an exchange of many different elements like food, animals, people, disease, plants and culture between the eastern and western hemispheres. In this essay, it will focus on one of the diseases during the Columbian Exchange called syphilis, specifically in Europe. It came from an island of the New World called Hispaniola and spread to Europe in 1490s (Nunn & Qian, 2010). There were many diseases that expanded from Europe to the Americas, for example, chicken pox, smallpox and malaria, when the Europeans arrived the Americas, the people in the Americas did not have any immunity of these new diseases, which led to lots of deaths (Nunn & Qian, 2010). Compare with these diseases from Europe, syphilis did not cause as many deaths as those diseases. In general, syphilis was brought from the old world to the new world by the Columbus fleet in the Columbia Exchange, and it had a great impact on Europe to a certain extent from both social and individual aspects.

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In regard to where syphilis came from, although it existed different explanations, after long time study, the syphilis was more possible from the New World. Nunn and Qian (2010) point out that there are 2 theories about where syphilis came from. One is “Columbian hypothesis”, the syphilis was from the island called Hispaniola of the New World and spread to Columbus’s fleet since they did sex with the local women. Later,  came back to Spain and went to the war between French and Naples. When they learned about prostitutes from other soldiers, they had sex with them which led that syphilis kept expanding widely. After that, as some of the soldiers who had been infected with syphilis returned to their countries, syphilis spread throughout Europe One is that syphilis has already existed in Europe which called “pre-Columbian hypothesis”.

After the researching, the syphilis was more likely from the New World. Mcgough states that syphilis also called French disease, and it has first appeared when French invaded Naples and spread since the soldiers had sexual behaviour with local women (2011). In addition, Nunn and Qian (2010) indicate that “The recent study by Harper et al. (2008) found that the bacterium causing venereal syphilis arose relatively recently in humans and is most closely related to a variation of the tropical disease yaws found in a remote region of Guyana, South America.” Which means that, early on, a team discovered a tropical disease called yaws in South America. Through the research of later period shows, the bacterium that causes syphilis and the germ of yaws disease have very big similarity place, it is the predecessor of syphilis possibly, and so that syphilis might originate from South America.

Outline

Impact of syphilis

Syphilis is a deadly sexually transmitted disease, and it had many negative effects on the health of people it infected in Europe. It was a majority public health threat at the time it emerged first in Europe, as there were no known methods of clinical treatment for the disease. The situation remained so until the 1940s when penicillin, an antibiotic was developed (Mcgough, 41). This explains why there was widespread fear across Europe when the disease first appeared in the region. This affected were usually stigmatized as they were isolated on claims that they practised immoral sexual behaviours. However, it is the negative effects of the disease that caught the attention of many Europeans at that time.

Syphilis has been found to cause a number of health complications in the people infected. It can make a person critically ill if left untreated for long. For those with weak immune responses, the disease can be fatal even in the short-term. However, it is the long-term health implications of the disease that caused a lot of scare amongst Europeans. Studies have shown that syphilis can cause anthrax and brain damage in the long-term if left untreated (Gruber, Lipozencic, and Marinovic, 23). Studies have also shown that syphilis can cause partial or total blindness if not treated. In addition, the clinical diagnosis of syphilis patients has shown that most of them get stomach problems or even ulcers as the disease ravages the body. Also, exanthema has been identified as a key symptom of secondary stage syphilis inmost of syphilis patients. Nevertheless, syphilis is no longer a public health emergency, thanks to the developments in the manufacture of antibiotics.

Social impact of syphilis in Europe

           The spread of syphilis in Europe brought many devastating consequences. The main reason for this was the lack of scientific understanding of the origin of the disease, diagnostic methods, treatment, and effective prevention mechanisms. It caused many deaths in Europe in all age groups when the outbreak started. There were no scientific methods of preventing mother-child transmission during birth. Therefore, many of the babies born by mothers who had syphilis eventually contracted the disease, and many of them died. This caused a significant decline in population in Europe.

The disease also caus3d wide-spread panic across Europe. In Italy where the outbreak was first recorded, there was widespread panic in the country when the severity of the disease was established. Those found infected were isolated and subjected to stigma, as they were seen to be sexually impure and immoral. In France and Sweden, there was also a lot of panic and fear due to the new disease, as many thought it would ravage entire Europe with devastating effects on the health of people. Although there were no effective treatments for the diseases when it emerged in Europe, mothers were given Guaiacum and mercury to minimize the possibility of transmission to babies. The administration of mercury was the first attempt to address the syphilis outbreak as it had been successfully used in treating leprosy by the Arabs. The mercury was applied to the skins of infected people, sometimes by fumigation. The goal of using mercury as a treatment for syphilis was that it caused patients to salivate, hence expelling the disease.

Bibliography

Earle, R. (2012). The Columbian exchange. In J. Pilcher (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Food History (pp. 341-353). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gruber, F., Lipozencic, J., & Marinovic, B. (2014). Endemic syphilis in Europe. Clinics in Dermatology, 32(2), 219-226.

McGough, L. J . (2011). Gender, sexuality, and syphilis in early modern Venice: the disease that came to stay. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Nunn, N., & Qian, N. (2010). The Columbian exchange: A history of disease, food, and ideas. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(2), 163-188.