The Great Pox

The rash of syphilis can mimic the rash of smallpox-so closely, in fact, that "smallpox" was named in distinction from the old folk-name for syphilis: "The Great Pox."

While these two diseases can at times look like each other, they are not related.

· Smallpox is viral, caused by the variola virus, and generally spread by breathing.
· Syphilis is a sexually transmitted bacterial disease caused by the spirochete bacterium.

These days, syphilis is much less terrifying than smallpox, as it is curable with antibiotics. However, when syphilis first swept across Europe in the early sixteenth century (probably brought back from the Americas by the Spanish), it was incurable and seems to have been much more malign than it is now. For a while, it was as feared in Europe as smallpox.

The syphilis that the Europeans took home from the Americas, however, proved far less lethally destructive than the smallpox that they left behind. By some counts, smallpox was a major contributor to the loss of over 90% of the pre-Columbian American population within a century after first contact.