History has suggested that syphilis is a disease of early times. The disease might have been prevalent among the indigenous peoples of the Americas before Europeans travelled to and from the New World ...

From the beginning, syphilis has been a deeply stigmatized, shameful disease. A letter written in June 1495 by an Italian doctor named Nicolò Squillaci contains one of the first written mentions of ...

In the last days of the 1400s, a terrible epidemic swept through Europe. Men and women spiked sudden fevers. Their joints ached, and they broke out in rashes that ripened into bursting boils. Ulcers ...