POX: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis

Excerpt from Columbus chapter:

Medical writers have attributed Columbus’s physical complaints to ailments such as typhus, rheumatic heart disease, and Reiter’s Syndrome. It was not until well into the twentieth century that Thomas Parran, one of the originators of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study and later Surgeon General of the United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt, first suggested that Columbus’s death was due to syphilis: “With his whole body dropsical from the chest downward, like that which is caused by injury to the valves of the heart, his limbs paralyzed, and his brain affected—all symptoms of late, fatal syphilis—he died on 20 May 1506.” He was draped in the gray robe of the order of St. Francis, poor, fallen from royal grace, and semi-mad. His last words were: “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.” Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit.

Other researchers since Parran have cautiously raised the possibility of syphilis. Christopher Wills asked: “Was Columbus himself suffering from syphilis, and does this explain his progressive mental derangement? Certainly when he returned to Spain from his final voyage at the end of 1504, he was clearly mentally ill and his legs were paralyzed.” Philip Marshall Dale ventured: “The sickness may have been syphilis.” Anton Luger concurred: “His symptoms resemble those observed in general paresis or in taboparesis, both conditions of late syphilis.”