CORONADO

Herman J. Viola, Carolyn Margolis, eds., Seeds of change: a quincentennial commemoration, (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), p. 217:

"[Within two years of Columbus’ return from his first voyage in 1493, Europe experienced an epidemic of syphilis. Various explanations have been proposed, but the 'Columbian theory'] appears to be the most strongly supported by historical documents.

Medical historians have repeatedly noted the absence of any unequivocal descriptions of syphilis in the medical literature of Europe, the Arab world, or China before A.D.1500, and so far no convincing evidence of syphilitic skeletal remains are known from the Old World before l500.

Additional evidence ... is the knowledge among native Americans of guaiacum, a remedy derived from the wood of a West Indian tree, which was claimed to be effective for the treatment of syphilis. Guaiacum caused the patient to sweat freely and presumably purge himself of the malady; it was a popular treatment for syphilis in Europe in the 1520s.

Contemporary Spanish historians Bartolomé de las Casas and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés both claimed that Columbus brought syphilis from the New World.

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