That’s right, we’re back! And we’re starting off with a bang. Syphilis, aka the Great Imitator, is the subject of today’s long-awaited episode, and it’s got everything you could imagine. When you woke up today, were you hoping to learn about how this spirochete can invade all of your body’s organs? Or how the geographic origins of syphilis are still disputed? Maybe you were wishing to gain some knowledge about a horrific experiment that revolutionized bioethics and defined what it means to give informed consent? One thing is certain – you’re definitely going to want to know about the current status of this ancient disease (yikes, it’s on the rise) and how to cure it (whew, penicillin works). Tune in to have all these wishes granted.
| History | Biology |
| Jones, James H. Bad Blood. Simon and Schuster, 1993. | Radolf JD. Treponema. In: Baron S, editor. Medical Microbiology. 4th edition. Galveston (TX): University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston; 1996. Chapter 36. |
| Quétel, Claude. History of Syphilis. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. | Lafond RE, Lukehart SA. Biological basis for syphilis. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2006;19(1):29–49. doi:10.1128/CMR.19.1.29-49.2006 |
| Noble, Jonathan. That Jealous Demon, My Wretched Health. Boydell Press, 2018. | Rowley, Jane, et al. “Chlamydia, gonorrhoea, trichomoniasis and syphilis: global prevalence and incidence estimates, 2016.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 97.8 (2019): 548. |
| Frith, John. “Syphilis-its early history and treatment until penicillin, and the debate on its origins.” Journal of Military and Veterans Health 20.4 (2012): 49. | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance 2017. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 2018. doi: 10.15620/cdc.59237 |
| Harper, Kristin N., et al. “The origin and antiquity of syphilis revisited: An Appraisal of Old World pre‐Columbian evidence for treponemal infection.” American journal of physical anthropology 146.S53 (2011): 99-133. | Cameron CE, Lukehart SA. Current status of syphilis vaccine development: need, challenges, prospects. Vaccine. 2014;32(14):1602–1609. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.09.053 |
| McGough, Laura J. “Syphilis in history: a response to 2 articles.” Clinical Infectious Diseases 41.4 (2005): 573-575. | Lithgow, Karen V., et al. “A defined syphilis vaccine candidate inhibits dissemination of Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum.” Nature communications 8 (2017): 14273. |
| Rothschild, Bruce M. “History of syphilis.” Clinical Infectious Diseases 40.10 (2005): 1454-1463. | Parveen, Nikhat, et al. “Non-pathogenic Borrelia burgdorferi expressing Treponema pallidum TprK and Tp0435 antigens as a novel approach to evaluate syphilis vaccine candidates.” Vaccine 37.13 (2019): 1807-1818. |
| Tsay, Cynthia J. “Julius Wagner-Jauregg and the legacy of malarial therapy for the treatment of general paresis of the insane.” The Yale journal of biology and medicine 86.2 (2013): 245. | |
| Zimmer, Carl. “Can genes solve the syphilis mystery?.” (2001): 1091-1091. | |
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Yale lecture: 21. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment |
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