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RETURN TO THE WORLD SCIENCE HOME PAGE Shakespeare might have had syphilis, researcher says Posted Jan. 12, 2005
Although syphilis is relatively uncommon now, it was rampant five centuries ago, transmitted from country to country by sailors, soldiers and merchants. Symptoms of syphilis can include genital lesions; rashes on the torso, palms, and soles of the feet; neurological problems; and destroyed facial tissue. Shakespeare mentioned sexually transmitted disease (STD) symptoms – and treatments – in several of his plays and poems, including Troilus and Cressida, As You Like It, and Sonnets. The new findings are published
in the Feb. 1 issue of the research journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. Mentions of the “pox,” the “malady of France,” the “infinite malady,” and the “hoar leprosy” in his writings seem to indicate that the Bard knew – perhaps from personal experience – how torturous venereal disease could be. “Shakespeare’s knowledge of
syphilis is clinically precise,” said John Ross, the study’s author. A line
in Sonnet 154, “Love’s fire heats water,” apparently refers to an STD
causing burning urination. In Shakespeare’s time, one of
the treatments for syphilis, inhalation of mercury vapor, was worse than the
disease. Ross suggests that Shakespeare’s tremulous signature on his will, his
social withdrawal in later years, and even his baldness might all be due to a
mild degree of mercury vapor poisoning. However, it doesn’t seem likely that Shakespeare’s death at 52 years of age was due to an STD. In fact, the alternative Elizabethan practice of using very hot baths to treat syphilitic people “would have been at least somewhat effective and perhaps highly effective,” according to Ross, of Caritas St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, Mass., because high, fever-causing temperatures can kill the organisms that cause syphilis. (There is a reference to a “seething bath” curing “strange maladies” in Sonnet 153.) Shakespeare was also an actor,
and he appeared in plays until at least 1603, said Ross. “It’s unlikely that
he would have been performing if he had been suffering from the ravages of
tertiary syphilis.” Nor did the Bard exhibit the mental problems toward the
end of his life that would indicate severe mercury poisoning, judging from the
quality of his writing, so any mercury treatment he received was probably
limited, Ross added. * * * Send us a comment on this story
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