Is the Columbian hypothesis about the much-disputed origin of Syphilis a remote fake news?

A man with “fake news” rushing to the printing press. Extract of “The fin de siècle newspaper proprietor”. Wikimedia Commons

In the history of medicine, some issues caused great controversy when they surged. It usually occurs in science in general. Time is a great sculptor of life’s avatars. It usually resolves the conflicts, but, occasionally, some disputes are perennial. An excellent example of a non-resolved argument is Syphilis’s geographical origin. In synthesis: there are two great groups of opinions, with a third more undefined and diverse.

We will focus our brief analysis on two antagonistic positions because of a question of limited space. A couple of ideological positions have generated the most debate: 1) The Columbian, American, or New World hypothesis; and 2) The Pre-Columbian, European, or Old-World hypothesis.

1. The Columbian Hypothesis

This theory claims that Syphilis, or a similar infection due to the genus Treponema’s bacteria, has existed on the American continent for millennia. In the fifteenth century, the disease arrived in Europe.

Columbus and his crew’s encounter with the Caribbean natives, in October 1492, led allegedly to the contagion of the ‘fiery’ Spanish sailors. The chronicler Francisco Lopez de Gomara wrote: ‘They [Columbus’s men] snatched women and beat them bubas’ (bubas was the Spanish…