![]() ![]() Based on her ongoing research, she believed that syphilis caused the death of the late medieval King Edward IV in 1483. A women’s historian with an interest in the history of disease, including syphilis, she had been studying the deaths of English royals for decades. When Salmon learned of Baker’s call, she was ready. Surely, they noted, such a “reviled and feared” disease should have elicited contemporary comment. put out a call for traditional documentary and artistic evidence. To move the field forward while waiting for definitive evidence from aDNA research, Baker et al. (There are three syndromes of treponematosis recoverable from teeth and bones: syphilis bejel, usually found in dry climates and yaws, usually found in the tropics.) Yet the important goal of distinguishing between treponemal syndromes remains elusive. (See their “ Advancing the Understanding of Treponemal Disease in the Past and Present,” Yearbook of Physical Anthropology.) Baker and other leaders in the field finally declared the issue settled. ![]() Over the last decade, however, instances of skeletal remains with damage symptomatic of treponemal disease have appeared more often in the literature. Some historians have long believed that treponematosis existed in medieval Europe, but paleopathologists (who work with teeth, bones, and aDNA) lacked the evidence to prove it. (The full article, “ Evidence for the Presence of Treponemal Disease, Including Syphilis, in Late Medieval Europe,” appears on pages 37-87 of Vol.
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