Syphilis was brought back by Columbus to Europe - allegedly. It was only one af many New World novelties such as chocolate, tobacco, cotton,sugar and potatoes. It is said that syphilis, in its heyday, affected one person in five. The effects of advanced syphilis are too gruesome to illustrate, with open sores and crumbling faces. Noses dropped off and were replaced by prostheses. It wasn't at all nice. However, if you were one of the lucky ones, syphilis wasn't so unkind. There were two main symptoms: a sore at the site of the infection , which soon went away; then, twenty years later, you developed the happy notion that you were the King of Siam. There is even an argument that syphilis made its host more creative. Here's a list of famous syphilitics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_syphilis_cases Pangloss was Candide's tutor. His philosophy was "All's for the best in this best of all possible worlds". Voltaire created him as a sideswipe at Leibniz, the German mathematician, who said that our universe was the best possible one that God could have created, given that there had to be inviolable laws of physics. Pangloss' philosophy is a scurrilous misrepresentation of Leibniz's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz This is Pangloss's attempt to find a rational explanation for the savages of syphilis and explain why in a comprehensive world view it was A Good Thing. The wriggly things in the background are spirochetes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_syphilis In The Daily Mail http://tinyurl.com/DailyMailSyphilis In the New York Times http://tinyurl.com/ColumbusSyphilis From Emory University http://tinyurl.com/SpirocheteColumbus Here's the author himself reading it: http://www.webofstories.com/play/richard.wilbur/27 Here's where you can buy his books at Amazon http://tinyurl.com/RichardWilburAmazon Dear boy, you will not hear me speak With sorrow or with rancour Of what has paled my rosy cheek And blasted it with canker; T'was Love, great Love, that did the deed Through nature's gentle laws, And how should ill effects proceed From so divine a cause? Sweet honey comes from bees that sting, As you are well aware; To one adept in reasoning, Whatever pains disease may bring Are but the tangy seasoning To love's delicious fare. II Columbus and his men, they say, Conveyed the virus hither Whereby my features rot away And vital powers wither; Yet had they not traversed the seas And come infected back, Why, think of all the luxuries That modern life would lack! All bitter things conduce to sweet As this example shows; Without the little spirochete We'd have no chocolate to eat, Nor would tobacco's fragrance greet The European nose. III Each nation guards its native land With cannon and with sentry, Inspectors look for contraband At every port of entry, Yet nothing can prevent the spread Of love's divine disease: It rounds the world from bed to bed As pretty as you please. Men worship Venus everywhere, As plainly may be seen; The decorations which I bear Are nobler than the Croix de Guerre, And gained in service of our fair And universal Queen.

• published: 28 Feb 2014
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