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Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works,

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Hey, brain stuff luring vogel bomb here. William

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Shakespeare mentioned diseases often in his

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plays, probably because he was literally

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surrounded by them, I mean, aren't we all.

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But during his London based lifetime

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in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds, such

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notorious illnesses as the bubonic plague,

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typhus, and malaria ravaged

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citizens, all made more potent and

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deadly by rodents, over crowding and

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virtually non existent sanitation systems.

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Also striking fear into the hearts of just

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about everyone were small pox

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and the Great pox, known today

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as syphilis. The two conditions

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actually present similar rashes, despite

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being different in terms of type of infection

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and transmission. Smallpox

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is a virus spread by breathing. Syphilis

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is bacterial and almost always sexually

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transmitted. The hallmark of both

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diseases was a body riddled with

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pustules, also known as pox.

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It felt the people to distinguish between these

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horrors. Thus syphilis became known

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as the Great pox, not because the

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pock marks of syphilis were larger than those of smallpox,

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but rather because, in the fifteen to seventeenth

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centuries, it was the greater fear.

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Syphilis was likely introduced to Europe

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when Christopher Columbus, a little that guy and

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his crew brought it back from the New World

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in fourteen nine three. Although

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there are other theories, the timing is definitely

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suspect. The pandemic began in Europe

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pretty much right after they returned, killing many.

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Even those who were lucky enough to survive were typically

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covered in scars and went blind. Of

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course, the Europeans, for their part, left

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behind smallpox and other diseases in the New

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World, sometimes intentionally, which

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how long with slavery, would wipe out millions

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of Native Americans. Fortunately,

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smallpox has now been eradicated by vaccine,

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and we have penicillin to treat syphilis. Shakespeare's

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writings indicate an interest in syphilis, such

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as in the play tim And of Athens, where he references

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the use of inhaled vaporized mercury

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salts, a common treatment for the disease at

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the time. In fact, one of his best known

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quotes was originally a reference to syphilis.

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A plague on both your houses from Romeo

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and Juliet was first a pox

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on both your houses. Thanks

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to multiple references of syphilis, and his works.

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Historians have wondered whether Shakespeare himself

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was infected. Known for being a little

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bit of a hustler, his signature during

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the last years of his life indicates that he

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experienced a tremor, which is

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a common side effect of mercury poisoning, which,

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as we said, was the treatment of choice for syphilis.

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Of course, any number of physical ailments can

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cause a tremor, so it's unlikely that this posthumous

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diagnosis will ever be confirmed. Today's

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episode was written by Alia Hoyt and produced by

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Tyler Clang. You can find brain stuff, phone

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cases, and other brain stuff in

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our shop at tea Public dot com, slash brain

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stuff, and of course, for more on this and lots

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of other POxy topics, visit our home planet,

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how Stuff Works dot com.