Soon after the French army sacked Naples in 1495, a never before seen venereal epidemic swept through the ranks. The illness presented as a painless genital ulcer that manifested a few day after sexual intercourse. It quickly spread to the Italian population and within a few years had reached all of Europe and everywhere in the world that Europeans travelled. As the world would soon learn, the disease, known now as syphilis, progressed past its initial presentation and caused a wide range of debilitating and disfiguring sequelae. Initially, the disease was named by each population for the group it thought was responsible for the epidemic. In far away Tahiti, it was called “the British disease”. The British, agreeing with the Italians, called it “the French disease”. The French called it “the Spanish disease”. The spaniard were through to have brought it with them when returning with Columbus from the New World. There, the Aztec deity Nanahuatzin (“the little pustule covered one”) was depicted bearing characteristically syphilitic deformities. The deity is patient zero in the long chain of attribution of blame for the disease.

When confronted with a poor patient prognosis in an ICU, it is not uncommon for an intensivist to blame the surgeon for a botched operation. The surgeon, for his part, can blame the medical specialist who failed to refer the patient soon enough. The specialist points to the GP for not understanding the disease who points to the patient for not coming in until it was too late. Like Nanahuatzin, the patient finds himself at the beginning of a long chain where ultimately he is to blame.

New evidence suggests that some strains of the bacteria responsible for syphilis were present in Europe even before the Columbian Exchange. Perhaps Europe had syphilis all along. Perhaps the doctors werepowerless to help their patients all along, too.