New DNA Analysis: Syphilis Originated in Americas, Columbus Brought it back to Europe

Columbus did not take syphilis to the Americas – he brought it back to Europe

New analysis of historic DNA shows the sexually transmitted disease travelled eastwards with the Italian navigator’s crew

Christopher Columbus presenting captives to the King of Spain after his return

When a mysterious flesh-rotting disease broke out in Europe in 1495, two years after Christopher Columbus returned from the Americas, suspicion fell on his crew.

Syphilis was soon rampant across the Continent and beyond, but its origins continued to be fiercely debated, with some historians claiming it was actually home-grown.

Now, scientists have carried out genetic testing on the bones of infected people from Chile, Peru, Mexico and Argentina, who lived between the 13th and 15th centuries and died before Columbus arrived.

They found that ancestral forms of syphilis were present in the New World before it was discovered by Europeans, indicating that the bacterium did indeed hitch a lift back with the explorers.

Historical documents show that Columbus’ crew “carried off” native women, acquiring sexually transmitted diseases.

Columbus arriving in the Americas,

“The data clearly support a root in the Americas for syphilis and its known relatives, and their introduction to Europe starting in the late 15th century is most consistent with the data,” said Kirsten Bos, group leader for molecular paleopathology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

The French disease

Syphilis was first recorded in French soldiers fighting in Italy for Charles VIII. Dubbed “the great pox” or “the French disease”, it killed five million in Europe at the end of 15th century and beginning of the 16th.

The sexually transmitted infection starts with painless ulcers on the genitals, before bringing rashes, flu-like fatigue, headaches and eventually foul-smelling oozing pustules.

Joseph Grunpeck, a German physician who contracted the illness, described it as “so appalling, that until now, nothing more terrible or disgusting has ever been known on this earth”.

In 1519, Ulrich von Hutten, the German poet and scholar, said that “boils stood out like acorns” and issued “filthy, stinking matter”.

Europeans took many diseases to the Americas previously unknown there – but not syphilis

Syphilis can lie dormant for years, meaning that often people do not realise they are infected and pass it on to loved ones. In the final stages, the skin begins to rot and disintegrate and victims succumb to heart failure or brain damage.

The disease had largely been eradicated in the Western world by the mid-20th century, but has recently had a resurgence. In 2022, UK syphilis cases reached their highest level since 1948.

Many communicable diseases moved westward across the Atlantic during the early colonial period bringing devastating consequences for indigenous people.

Syphilis is one of a few that made the reverse journey

The disease leaves tell-tale lesion marks on bones and teeth.

Other diseases can leave similar marks, so researchers set out to study DNA from the pathogens which had been left in the bones of sufferers in the Americas.

“We’ve known for some time that syphilis-like infections occurred in the Americas for millennia, but from the lesions alone it’s impossible to fully characterize the disease,” said Dr Casey Kirkpatrick, a paleopathologist at the Max Planck Institute.

The team was able to recover and analyse five ancient genomes of the syphilis “disease family”, to determine the relationship between the extinct forms and the strains circulating today.

They found lineages which predate the strains in Europe and contributed to the explosion in cases of syphilis there in the 15th and 16th centuries.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/18/columbus-didnt-take-syphilis-to-the-americas/

The first suspected cases in Europe date to 1494, when French King Charles VIII invaded Italy at the head of an army of mercenaries from across the continent. Historical accounts report a new disease sweeping through the army’s crowded camps, disfiguring and debilitating thousands of soldiers.

When the war ended in 1495, the mercenaries headed home, bringing the sexually transmitted infection with them. By 1500, cases of syphilis—characterized by skin sores on the face and genitals that stigmatized the infected—were reported all across Europe. “The spread [was] quite rapid, and quite devastating,” 

Syphilis is part of a small family of diseases that includes yaws and bejel. While syphilis is found around the world, yaws and bejel are tropical diseases seen mostly in equatorial regions. All three conditions are caused by strains of Treponema pallidum bacteria.

Columbus transported the disease to Europe aboard the Santa Maria and other ships

A 38-year-old man was found to have malignant syphilis which caused painful, crusted ulcers all over his body

The symptoms started as painless lumps over his torso, arms and face but developed into oozing ulcers

Durer, 1495-96

Local Muslim convicted of Knife Murder by San Francisco Jury

A San Francisco jury found tech consultant Nima Momeni guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee. 

Jurors took seven days to deliver their verdict against Momeni in the April 4, 2023, death of Lee, a beloved tech mogul who was found staggering on a deserted downtown street, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. Lee, 43, later died in hospital.

Momeni took Lee's life on the 300 block of Main Street in the ritzy Rincon Hill neighborhood.

'Lee called 911 pleading for help, saying somebody stabbed me,' said Dane Reinstedt, assistant district attorney, adding that Momeni never called police or told anyone what happened that night until the trial.

Lee's brother Timothy Oliver Lee said the family was satisfied with the verdict, reported CBS News Bay Area. 

'We we're happy with the result today. We're happy that Nima Momeni won't be on the streets, no longer has the opportunity to harm anyone else in this world,' he said. 'The verdict of murder two will put him away for a long time.' 

A San Francisco jury found tech consultant Nima Momeni (pictured) guilty of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee

Lee was found staggering on a deserted downtown San Francisco street at 2:30am in April 2023, dripping a trail of blood and calling for help. He later died at a hospital

A conviction of murder in the second degree carries a sentence of 16 years to life in this case. 

Lee had created mobile payment service Cash App and was the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin when he died. 

He had moved to Miami from the San Francisco Bay Area, where his ex-wife Krista Lee lives with their two children. 

The assistant district attorney mocked Momeni's defense as he walked jurors through evidence from the trial that began on October 14.

He said Momeni was furious with Lee for introducing Khazar, with whom he was friends, to a drug dealer who gave her GHB, known as a date-rape drug, hours before the stabbing.

They say Momeni grilled Lee earlier in the evening about what happened to his sister at the drug dealer's apartment, and sent text messages saying that the two men were creeps and sexual predators.

Momeni then met up with Lee at his sister's condo, took a paring knife from her kitchen set, drove Lee to a secluded area by the Bay Bridge and stabbed him three times, including a fatal blow through his heart, on a dimly lit street, Reinstedt said.

Prosecutor, Dane Reinstedt, can be seen in this courtroom sketch showing harrowing video of Bob Lee's final moments as he lay dying outside an apartment building

The puncture wounds were clean, clear and deep, and not the result of any kind of self-defense tussle, according to the prosecutor. He said 99 percent of the DNA on the handle of the knife belonged to Momeni.

Surveillance video shows the two men leaving the posh condo of Khazar Momeni around 2 am and getting into Momeni's BMW. 

Other footage then shows them getting out of the car in an isolated section of the city by the Bay Bridge.

Momeni testified he stopped his car after going over a pothole.

Momeni's testimony was at times rambling and contentious.

Lee was seen in video footage desperately banging on the doors to an apartment complex as he searched for help

Bob Lee, the CashApp creator was a father to two girls. Both are now teenagers with Scout, 16, seen right, attending court in San Francisco on Monday

Reinstedt played Lee's 911 call from April 4, 2023, that recorded his final words.

Jurors could hear him begging an emergency dispatcher for help before he collapsed on Main Street in a pool of blood.

Lee's devastated daughter, Scout Lee, 16, could be heard sobbing as harrowing video footage of her dying father was played to the jury.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14202759/nima-momeni-guilty-murder-cash-app-ceo-bob-lee.html

Nima Momeni's sister, Khazar Momeni, showed up to court wearing a pastel blue silk Valentino dress with a pussy bow neckline, which retails for $5,500

Khazar placing her belongings in the security bin

Khazar with her husband, a prominent and rich plastic surgeon

Khazar Elyassnia (right), 37, who was with Lee the day he died, refused to be interviewed by police investigators. She was said to be having a sexual relationship with Lee even though she is married to plastic surgeon  Dr Dino Elyassnia (pictured together left)

Khazar being arrested on DUI and hit-and-run charges, among others, after crashing her car in San Francisco on November 27, 2023

Khazar was accused of abusing fentanyl, cocaine, and nitrous oxide.

The blonde bombshell accessorized her look with large, white-framed glasses, a small white clutch, and beige heels

Khazar Momeni, 38, (left) is the sister of Nima Momeni (right) who is charged with fatally stabbing Cash App founder Bob Lee

A shaken Khazar Momeni pleads with police officers during her DUI arrest in San Francisco

Momeni was taken into custody after she was seen slamming into multiple parked cars in the Tenderloin district while under the influence of nitrous oxide

'Don't take her pretty ass to jail,' one woman at the scene was heard telling the cops.

Bystander video showed a canister of 'whippets' – a popular party inhalant drug found in the front seat alongside her designer handbag during her arrest 

A damaged car she crashed into parked on Larkin Street 

Khazar, who is the sister of the man who killed tech entrepreneur Bob Lee, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and a hit-and-run

Momeni's legs shaking as she faces questioning

'I did not know he's a drug dealer, as we don't get close to our drug dealers or invite them upstairs even. He was introduced to me as a friend,' Khazar told the court

In lengthy testimony, she accused the alleged drug dealer, Jeremy Boivin, of giving her the 'date rape' drug GHB, pulling her pants down and sexually assaulting her while she remained unconscious, Mission Local reported.

Khazar stated that Lee brought Boivin to her home on the morning of April 3, 2023, the day before the fatal stabbing.

'I did not know he's a drug dealer, as we don't get close to our drug dealers or invite them upstairs even. He was introduced to me as a friend,' she said. 'He brought me a big tank of nitrous and he had a big bottle of a liter of GHB.'

Khazar later went to Boivin's home, where Lee and another friend also stopped by. After Lee and his friend left, she claimed she passed out after consuming drugs.

She told the court that she had consumed three shots of a drink mixed with GHB before 'passing out.'

'He asked me about GHB and gave me, like, this sweet little drink, a little shot. And I drank it. I thought I could trust him,' Khazar said.

'I remember waking up twice: One time he (Boivin) pulled down my pants and slapped my ass. And another time he grabbed my ass, but I couldn't move or do anything.'

She and a young male passenger had pulled up to Alma's Smoke Shop at the corner of Larkin and O'Farrell to pick up a canister of nitrous oxide

She bought two canisters of N20, popular party inhalants known as 'whippets,' which are priced between $40 and $60 at the store 

She was booked into San Francisco County Jail and charged with driving under the influence, two counts of a hit-and-run, failure to drive within the lane and failure to provide insurance at the scene of an accident

Friends say Cash App founder Bob Lee was a regular at underground sex and drug parties with other San Francisco elites — including the sister of the man accused of killing him. 'He was also hanging out with people who weren't great people, and that was part of what happened in the end. 'There are a lot of swingers, cheaters and liars in that crowd'

Nima Momeni, the killer, was dealing with drug addiction 'that made him unable to reason and speak' and was abusive to his girlfriends

Bob Lee's agonizing final moments after he was stabbed in the heart