Can anyone remember what syphillis actually did?

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I seem to remember brains decaying and a cure of arsenic. Is this right?

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 20 September 2002 03:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Why the pasttense?

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 20 September 2002 03:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hasn't it been largely eradicated? Also, terribly funny ref. to Sisyphus question. Sorry. I think the Duke of Clarence had it, the resulting insanity being one of the reasons he was/is regarded as a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 20 September 2002 03:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I knew this was coming... Bram Stroker to thread...

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 20 September 2002 03:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Henrik Ibsen also.

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 20 September 2002 03:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Andrew is just worried because of his known habit of wandering Auckland's docklands late at night. Or does he?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 20 September 2002 03:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Geez, how did i know this thread was coming?* I shoulda known it was your doing, Andrew...Heed the Raggett's wise counsel and avoid those swarthy sailor types. Syphillis will make you itchy then pus-y then mad then dead.

* could it be cause i was about to start one myself? quite likely.

― petra jane (petra jane), Friday, 20 September 2002 05:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey! I was a sailor once!

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 20 September 2002 06:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Truth be told VD runs rampant throughout the Navy; I remember being at a multi-branch assembly once where they were showing the rate of STD infections. Suffice it to say the Navy was like the square of the Army, Air Force, and Marines combined.

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 20 September 2002 06:06 (twenty-three years ago)

They say Mugabe might have it.

― Sam (chirombo), Friday, 20 September 2002 07:42 (twenty-three years ago)

what happened to syphilis in the 80's? i mean, thousands of people had it before the discovery of AIDS, but then the numbers went to zero

― boxcubed (boxcubed), Friday, 20 September 2002 07:45 (twenty-three years ago)

pioson rocks u r all pus-y

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 September 2002 08:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmm, mark s, have i proposed to you lately?

― petra jane (petra jane), Friday, 20 September 2002 08:24 (twenty-three years ago)

You had to buy a merkin to hide yr sores.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Friday, 20 September 2002 08:47 (twenty-three years ago)

This is what I originally thought the Sisyphus thread was called. I really should try to read a little more slowly

― Sofa King Alternative (Sofa King Alternative), Friday, 20 September 2002 11:17 (twenty-three years ago)

what happened to syphilis in the 80's? i mean, thousands of people had it before the discovery of AIDS, but then the numbers went to zero

1) It goes in cycles, as this or that segment of population within which it was circulating gets treated.

2) Did the number of cases actually diminish during the 1980s, or did the disease's profile get pushed off the top of the health pages by AIDS?

3) It and other venereal diseases attack synergistically with AIDS. Someone with chancres from untreated syphilis is at increased risk of contracting the HIV virus from a positive partner; someone with reduced immune function as a result of HIV infection will be hit harder and quicker if they contract syphilis.

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 20 September 2002 14:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Truth be told VD runs rampant throughout the Navy

I now see my dad with new eyes.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 20 September 2002 14:25 (twenty-three years ago)

No one's going to call attention to my unfortunate (syphillis inspired?) slip: Bram Stoker>Bram Stroker!! You all are too nice...

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 20 September 2002 23:36 (twenty-three years ago)

it made beethoven deaf

― jayne (jayne), Friday, 20 September 2002 23:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Syphillis turned into syphilis (well, there's more stuff on the Int'net under that spelling anyway) and it's cured with antibiotics, although any organ damage that has occurred is not repaired by using the antibiotics. There's still lots of cases of it apparently (like 5 people in 100,000 have it or something).

What's really interesting about it is that febrile disease also cures it and there was a dude called Wagner von Jauregg who won a nobel prize for infecting progressive-paralysis syphilis patients with malaria in order to cure them!

It's totally mad but pretty cool too - there's a really good article about it on the nobel site: http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1927/wagner-jauregg-lecture.html

― toraneko (toraneko), Sunday, 22 September 2002 08:33 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

james blount is it ok if I imagine you with an eyepatch and a parrot on your shoulder?

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 17 November 2002 19:20 (twenty-three years ago)

wouldn't it be called a 'shoulderpatch' then Josh?

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Sunday, 17 November 2002 19:27 (twenty-three years ago)

hahaha

― donna (donna), Sunday, 17 November 2002 19:28 (twenty-three years ago)

you need to have boggly eyes too though, people from syphillitic families seem to have boggly eyes.
dont ask me where i got that from.

― donna (donna), Sunday, 17 November 2002 19:30 (twenty-three years ago)

http://www.how2.co.uk/tx_images/110906pinata02.jpg

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Sunday, 17 November 2002 19:41 (twenty-three years ago)

yarrrrrrrrr

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 17 November 2002 20:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two months pass...

http://www.wilshirewigs.com/Merchant2/graphics/accessories/250x250/xs89.jpg

― Ed (dali), Monday, 20 January 2003 17:59 (twenty-three years ago)

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