Anyone Subscribed to Clinical Infectious Diseases?

[livius drusus]

Because there's an article this month about whether Shakespeare had syphillis and I'm dying of curiosity. Here's (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CID/journal/issues/v40n3/34544/brief/34544.abstract.html) the abstract.

[Dingfod]

I'm sure that was a typo, Shakespeare had Silly Phyllis, not syphillis. She lived under his writing desk and was his collaborator for all his comedic plays.

[Goliath]

Yep, I get one new disease per month. Next month is gonohhrea! :P

[livius drusus]

Bunch of wisenheimers up in here. I want my Clinical Infectious Diseases, dammit! :order:

[Dingfod]

Well, okay, but I'll have to go get infected first. Gotta run find some skanks. I'll be with you in a couple hours.

[Goliath]

Well, okay, but I'll have to go get infected first. Gotta run find some skanks. I'll be with you in a couple hours.

Ah, but that's the beauty of the subscription! The diseases come to you each month, whether you get laid or not. :D

[Dingfod]

Well, okay, but I'll have to go get infected first. Gotta run find some skanks. I'll be with you in a couple hours.

Ah, but that's the beauty of the subscription! The diseases come to you each month, whether you get laid or not. :DOkayl, how much for a year's subscription?

[livius drusus]

You are bad, bad boys and I shall have to spank you both. :spank:

[wildernesse]

Has anyone sent you a copy of this yet, liv? If not, would you like a pdf or text file?

[livius drusus]

:woohoo:

Nobody! All I've gotten is a lot of sassmouth. pdf would be just wonderful, wildy, and I promise I'll never wish you had put me on ignore again. You rule! :huggle:

[wildernesse]

It is on its way. :cool:

This is actually the third journal I've looked at today regarding std's.

[livius drusus]

I got it! :yahoo: Thank you, wildy. Just out of curiosity, what were the other two you checked out?

[wildernesse]

Both were from the Health and Sexuality forum at Cross+Flame about news reports.

The first was:

Use of recreational Viagra among men having sex with men, by R. Crosby from Sexually Transmitted Infections, Dec 2004.

Related to a discussion about why the Reuters headline (Some Gay Men Mis-use Viagra) and parts of the article were unduly sensational--and how the science reporting in the article wasn't up to snuff. IMO, of course--I am not a scientist. I'm not a journalist either, thank goodness.

The second was:

Douching, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and Incident Gonococcal and Chlamydial Genital Infection in a Cohort of High-Risk Women, by R. Nass, from American Journal of Epidemiology, Jan 05.

Related to a discussion about how the Reuters headline (Douching Not Related to Pelvic Disease) was not "sensationalized" like the earlier article with a headline like "Promiscuous Black Women Don't Get STD's By Douching". What is interesting is that the paper itself restricts its conclusions to African-American women, because White women who participated in the study had contrary findings, but because of the small sample size, conclusions about White women could not be drawn from the data. So, again, a discussion about the media representation of new science.

Again, I am not a scientist and so my conclusions aren't based on scientific methodology and I probably don't understand the science very well.

[godfry n. glad]

:woohoo:

Nobody! All I've gotten is a lot of sassmouth. pdf would be just wonderful, wildy, and I promise I'll never wish you had put me on ignore again. You rule! :huggle:

Sassmouth?

Sister, anytime you done been looking for medical journal materials, you can come to me. I had it. I see wildy has provided it, so there is no need for me to do so. Proving that wildy is resourceful and intelligent as well as a beauty.

I'm not too sure about her reading material, though.... :chin:

godfry

[wildernesse]

Sassmouth?

Sister, anytime you done been looking for medical journal materials, you can come to me. I had it. I see wildy has provided it, so there is no need for me to do so. Proving that wildy is resourceful and intelligent as well as a beauty.

I'm not too sure about her reading material, though.... :chin:

godfry

:blush: Thank you for the compliments.

[Roland98]

Because there's an article this month about whether Shakespeare had syphillis and I'm dying of curiosity. Here's (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CID/journal/issues/v40n3/34544/brief/34544.abstract.html) the abstract.

Guess you already got it--yay for college libraries! :) I actually get the hard copy of that journal, but haven't had a chance to read that yet.

[livius drusus]

I did indeed, Ro, thank you. I haven't read the article yet but will be sure to post all the oozing details once I have. :plotting:

[TomJoe]

Syphillis doesn't ooze. Gonorrhoeae on the other hand, does.

[livius drusus]

Oh, woops. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to offend. :giggle:

[TomJoe]

Oh, woops. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to offend. :giggle:


LOL. No offense taken. Not as if my trying to protect the good name of the gonococcus. :)

[livius drusus]

No, no. Just Treponema pallidum's. ;)

[TomJoe]

No, no. Just Treponema pallidum's. ;)

Nah... damn spirochetes. :fuming:

PS: You need to italicize Treponema pallidum.

This is me being pedantic. :P

[livius drusus]

Yeah! Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em right in the ear! :mob:

Oh...

Best not, actually.

P.S. - I considered it and then decided not to just to draw out your inner pedant. I think he's cute.

[Roland98]

No, no. Just Treponema pallidum's. ;)

Nah... damn spirochetes. :fuming:

I hope you're getting counseling for your anti-spirochete bias. Think of all the Borrelias and Helicobacters' feelings you're hurting.

[TomJoe]

No, no. Just Treponema pallidum's. ;)

Nah... damn spirochetes. :fuming:

I hope you're getting counseling for your anti-spirochete bias. Think of all the Borrelias and Helicobacters' feelings you're hurting.

My therapist said it was best if I voiced my feelings, rather than letting things fester. Between that and the medication... I think I'm making considerable progress.

However, does this make me an anti-spirochete-ite?

[JoeP]

... just to draw out your inner pedant. I think he's cute.You typed this and hit submit without realising that it absolutely screams out for a smilie? C'mon liv, get us an "inner pedant" smilie. There are so many posts (and board members) where it would be useful.

[JoeP]

Oh, woops. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to offend. :giggle:Oh yeah? Backwash. Backwash, backwash, backwash.

[livius drusus]

... just to draw out your inner pedant. I think he's cute.You typed this and hit submit without realising that it absolutely screams out for a smilie? C'mon liv, get us an "inner pedant" smilie. There are so many posts (and board members) where it would be useful.

Could I interest you in a much belated :oldlady: instead?

[godfry n. glad]

I'd still like to see that "inner pedant" smiley.

I picture it as a nun with a ruler. (Just take :whup: put it in a habit and change the bat to a ruler.)

But that's just me.

godfry

[livius drusus]

Shhhh! godfry, this is not how to help me distract Joe, dammit!

[livius drusus]

I have now read the actual article and enjoyed it quite a bit. The hard (shut up, pervs) evidence of Shakespeare having syphilis is nonexistent, of course, but the speculative romp through his sonnets, plays and contemporary writings singling out potential references to venereal disease seems quite plausible, as well as being just plain fun for the likes of me.

Also, you microbiologist types are kinda gross, did you know that? Here's my favorite combination of literary analysis and infectious disease speak:

There are no certain references to genital chancres in Shakespeare's writings, although the "embossed sores" in As You Like It (act 2, scene 7) and the "canker" in Sonnet 95 associated with "vice" and "lascivious...sport" are suggestive. A catalog of the secondary and tertiary manifestations of syphilis in Troilus and Cressida (act 5, scene 1) includes "raw eyes" (sphylitic episcleritis, iritis, or uveitis), "bone-ache" (syphilitic periostitis), and "limekilns in the palm" (the papulosquamous, palmar rash of secondary syphilis).

Papulosquamous palmar rash may well be my new favorite insult.

And just so you never look at a Shakesperean love sonnet in quite the same way again, check out Sonnet 153 from a microbiological perspective:

The sonnets end with 2 variations on a theme: a nymph ignites the waters of love with Cupid's stolen torch. Shakespeare transforms this into an ironic metaphor for venereal disease: Cupid's "fire" is the dysuria of gonorrhea, and the hot bath is the tub treatment of syphilis. In Sonnet 153, the poet, "a sad distempered guest," seeks a remedy for the "new fire" acquired from "his mistress' eye." Here, the "eye" of his mistress can be understood as her pudendum.

He he... Pudendum... :giggle:

Beyond that, the article briefly and interestingly covers the history of syphilis ("The French called it the Neapolitan disease, and the English, Germans, and Italians called it the French disease. The Russians blamed it on the Poles; the Poles blamed the Germans; the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Portuguese blamed the Spanish; in India and Japan, the Portuguese were blamed.") and its treatment.

I found it interesting to learn that the super hot bath treatment actually worked to arrest the disease because TomJoe's friend Treponema pallidum "not only ... lack[s] an effective heat shock response, but at least one key metabolic enzyme is very sensitive to heat."

Thank you, wildy, for hooking me up. If this article is representative of CID's work, I can see how it's worth the $600 a year subscription fee. :yup:

[godfry n. glad]

Hmmm... I thought that because the first widespread outbreaks in Europe came at the end of the 15th century and beginning of the 16th century, that it's introduction to Europe was via various explorers' crews and soldiers, who returned it to Europe (and the Old World) from the New World.

Does the New World inception of syphillis not hold any more, or have they relegated it to the "source unknown" category?

godfry

(and, if you think microbiologists are bad, don't hang out with clinical pathologists...they're worse.)

[livius drusus]

No, that's their position as well:
The Spanish chroniclers Oviedo (in 1526) and Diaz de Isla (in 1539) asserted that Columbus' crew brought syphilis back to Spain from the Caribbean after his first voyage. Recent studies support this contention. Investigators found no signs of venereal syphilis in several thousand pre-Columbian European skeletons, whereas up to 14% of skeletal remains from pre-Columbian sites in the Dominican Republic displayed characteristic syphilitic periostitis.

The paragraph I quoted in my previous post was only referring to how people disowned the disease once it hit their country.

[Roland98]

Also, you microbiologist types are kinda gross, did you know that?

Duh-uh. :)

If this article is representative of CID's work, I can see how it's worth the $600 a year subscription fee. :yup:

Most of the articles are obviously lab or field studies, but once in awhile they'll do a historical look at disease. I've seen several where they've analyzed the Plague of Athens and try to pin down a causative agent; there was also one (can't recall which journal) where they compared Poe's "The Mask of Red Death" to Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever diseases. (And several have been written on "The Fall of the House of Usher" as well).

[TomJoe]

Also, you microbiologist types are kinda gross, did you know that?


With a very strange sense of humor too.

My favorite joke, after telling people what I do for a living is: Hey, at least I don't bring my work home with me.

I work on Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

[livius drusus]

Duh-uh. :)

So can I assume then that you'll be changing your custom title to Papulosquamous palmar rash any minute now?

Most of the articles are obviously lab or field studies, but once in awhile they'll do a historical look at disease. I've seen several where they've analyzed the Plague of Athens and try to pin down a causative agent; there was also one (can't recall which journal) where they compared Poe's "The Mask of Red Death" to Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever diseases. (And several have been written on "The Fall of the House of Usher" as well).

Yummy. They should totally do an offshoot newstand edition dedicated to disease in history and literature. I would buy 3 year subscriptions for myself and everyone I know.

If you ever come across any such articles in future editions I would dearly love to hear about it, Roland. :thankee:

[livius drusus]

My favorite joke, after telling people what I do for a living is: Hey, at least I don't bring my work home with me.

I work on Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

Oh you're a pistol, you ah. So Cupid's fire resonates rather strongly with you, I'm guessing.

[Roland98]

So can I assume then that you'll be changing your custom title to Papulosquamous palmar rash any minute now?

I'll consider it. ;)


Yummy. They should totally do an offshoot newstand edition dedicated to disease in history and literature. I would buy 3 year subscriptions for myself and everyone I know.

You are truly a queen among nerds.

If you ever come across any such articles in future editions I would dearly love to hear about it, Roland. :thankee:

Not a problem. :)

[TomJoe]

If you liked that article liv, you might want to consider reading A Field Guide to Germs (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/140003051X/qid=1106333091/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-8308313-8657506?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Wayne Biddle. It gives a good run down of quite a few bacteria, fungi and viruses in terms of history and pathogenesis... in a funny but accurate manner.

[livius drusus]

And she's ordered and on her way. Judging from the blurbs and reviews, it's a great read. Thanks, TomJoe.

I was also highly amused to see this in the sponsored links section:
http://www.freethought-forum.com/images/germs.jpg

Quite ironic, I thought, particularly in light of a discussion we once had (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=284) on the dangers of obsessive germ avoidance.

[Ensign Steve]

TV's Monk is brought to us by Lysol disinfectant products. What are you gonna do? Target demos are target demos. ;)

[Gurdur]

Damn that I didn't see this before
[QUOTE]There are no certain references to genital chancres in Shakespeare's writings, although the "embossed sores" in As You Like It (act 2, scene 7) and the "canker" in Sonnet 95 associated with "vice" and "lascivious...sport" are suggestive.
Problem is, that could easily be "soft canker / chancre" --- an STD but not syphilis.
A catalog of the secondary and tertiary manifestations of syphilis in Troilus and Cressida (act 5, scene 1) includes "raw eyes" (sphylitic episcleritis, iritis, or uveitis),
Could also be chlamydia, which can be both sexually and non-sexually transmitted.
"bone-ache" (syphilitic periostitis),
How about dengue fever ? OK, that was a stretch, but since athritis and deformations of veterbrae were extremely common (owing to very hard working lives), I can't see much reason to link this to syphilis --- jsut how would one know that such a progession, which occurs much, much later that the initial infection, was cuased by the syphilitic infection ? After all, having multiple diseases was hardly unknown at that time.
and "limekilns in the palm" (the papulosquamous, palmar rash of secondary syphilis).
Ooooer, how about addiction to arsenic instead ?
OK, I'm stretching because arsenic addiction did not become common in England till the late 19th century.
But point is, the article's stretching things a hell of a lot too.
I found it interesting to learn that the super hot bath treatment actually worked to arrest the disease because TomJoe's friend Treponema pallidum "not only ... lack[s] an effective heat shock response, but at least one key metabolic enzyme is very sensitive to heat."
The only psychiatrist ever to win the Nobel Prize won it by finding a cure for syphilis (actually, he wanted a cure for tertiary syphilis, but it works on syphilis overall). He did it by infecting the patients with falciparum malaria, then eventually giving the patients quinine so that the malaria didn't kill them instead.
The exceptionally high fever caused by malaria killed all spirochetes stone dead --- wherever they were (body, spinal cord, brain, wherever).

godfry n. glad
The New World origin of syphilis is stil the best explanation that anyone has so far.
But since I love talking about bejel, yaws, pinta and syphilis, I'm always happy to have a good discussion on this one.

BTW, the 50-year period after syphilis broke out in Europe was a period of horrendous epidemic -- the new disease was very quickly lethal, very lethal, and moved very fast.
After the first 50 years, the disease mutated into the far slower and less lethal form we know today.
In quite a few European cities, you will still find certain districts called "The French Quarter" --- andthat was because those districts were boarded up and used as compulsory quarantine stations (and syphilis was called the French Disease, owing to a particular French army on the retreat for Italy being the first major transport vector of the new disease epidemic) --- the epidemic was much worse than the Black Death in some ways, but because it only lasted 50 years with no repeats it was fairly quickly forgotten.

[wildernesse]

I actually read this article on Monday, during the 2.5 hours of waiting I did with only my laptop to distract me. I thought it was very interesting. I should download more random articles to my laptop for the future.

[livius drusus]

A catalog of the secondary and tertiary manifestations of syphilis in Troilus and Cressida (act 5, scene 1) includes "raw eyes" (sphylitic episcleritis, iritis, or uveitis),
Could also be chlamydia, which can be both sexually and non-sexually transmitted.

Chlamydia causes eye problems? I didn't know that. When I read that part of the article I immediately thought of the Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses who lost an entire eye to syphilis (and to Laclos' moral metaphor of pre-Revolutionary aristocracy's rot from within).

The article did mention that syphilis, gonorrhea and herpes simplex were poorly differentiated in Elizabethan England, and that Shakespeare's repeated referenced to "fire" could indicate dysuria.

and "limekilns in the palm" (the papulosquamous, palmar rash of secondary syphilis).
Ooooer, how about addiction to arsenic instead ?
OK, I'm stretching because arsenic addiction did not become common in England till the late 19th century.
But point is, the article's stretching things a hell of a lot too.

True that. I think the entire article was something of a speculative romp. The evidence they present to suggest Shakespeare had syphillis is indeed stretched very thin, particularly the textual references.

The only psychiatrist ever to win the Nobel Prize won it by finding a cure for syphilis (actually, he wanted a cure for tertiary syphilis, but it works on syphilis overall). He did it by infecting the patients with falciparum malaria, then eventually giving the patients quinine so that the malaria didn't kill them instead.
The exceptionally high fever caused by malaria killed all spirochetes stone dead --- wherever they were (body, spinal cord, brain, wherever).

They mentioned Julius Wagner-Jauregg's vivax malaria therapy in the article, but said that given the 9% mortality rate of the treatment, people kept using heating therapies -- fever cabinets, hot baths -- which increased body temperature to spirochete-killing levels but had a 1 or 2% mortality rate.

[Gurdur]

Chlamydia causes eye problems?
Famous for it --- children often get non-sexually-transmitted chlamydia infections of the eyes when living in badly unhygenic conditions (and especially in hot climates).
For example, chlamydia eye problems is a very bad problem in many Australian Aboriginal communities in Queensland (warm, tropical, ugh).

BTW, koalas also suffer from endemic chlamydia, same thing with eye problems, leading to lots of koalas dying from blindness handicaps.
"limekilns in the palm"
Actually, I still find that one phrase fascinating.
It really is a brilliant description of advanced arsenic addition, except AFAIK in Shakespeare's time arsenic addition was very little, so I just really do wonder which other disease Shakespeare was referring to there.
They mentioned Julius Wagner-Jauregg's vivax malaria therapy in the article,
Yeah, sorry, I don't have it. Could you please send me a copy of the whole article per email ?
fever cabinets, hot baths
Wimps ! Wimps !
I've had 12 bouts of severe falciparum malaria, and if I can do it, anyone can ! And that beats vivax hands-down for lethality !
Mind you, I've never had syphilis, chlamydia, or other STD's.

BTW, if you're interested: there was a very good book on the absinthe poet Rimbaud and his syphilis, though what actually killed him was a nasty sarcoma (sp ?) of one leg.

[livius drusus]

Famous for it --- children often get non-sexually-transmitted chlamydia infections of the eyes when living in badly unhygenic conditions (and especially in hot climates).
For example, chlamydia eye problems is a very bad problem in many Australian Aboriginal communities in Queensland (warm, tropical, ugh).

BTW, koalas also suffer from endemic chlamydia, same thing with eye problems, leading to lots of koalas dying from blindness handicaps.

I had no idea. That's both fascinating and icky, and therefore very much in keeping with the theme of this thread.

Actually, I still find that one phrase fascinating.
It really is a brilliant description of advanced arsenic addition, except AFAIK in Shakespeare's time arsenic addition was very little

Just to bring the wheel full circle, the article mentions that arsenic was even used to treat syhpilis, but that was long after Shakespeare's time. Mercury treatment was more the rage in his day.


Yeah, sorry, I don't have it. Could you please send me a copy of the whole article per email ?

Done.

BTW, if you're interested: there was a very good book on the absinthe poet Rimbaud and his syphilis, though what actually killed him was a nasty sarcoma (sp ?) of one leg.

I am very interested indeed, on several levels. Which book is this?

[Gurdur]

..... arsenic was even used to treat syhpilis .... Mercury treatment ...
Problem is, mercury and arsenic were used to treat a huge range of diseases and conditions.
Arsenic later became a drug of choice, not as a treatment, but as a general pick-me-up (and highly addictive), sold widely throughout pharmacists till suddenly massively controlled along with cocaine and heroin, early 20th century.

Which book is this?I'm not quite sure. I never read it.
It could be one of two mentioned here (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above%26field-keywords%3DRimbaud%252520Africa%26store-name%3Dbooks/104-3752465-1307140);
but looking at the reviews (or lack of them), I am not sure.
One book is reviewed, but seems to get things wrong (at least with the Publishers' Weekly); contrary to the supposition there that Rimbaud was initiated "into violent sex with poet Paul Verlaine". in actual fact Rimbaud as a schoolboy visited French Army front-line trenches on one occasion during a war, and was pack-raped/sodomised; his much later relationship with Verlaine seems to have been an attempt to come to terms with that incident by embracing it, figuratively and almost literally.

The other supposition made there, that "Nicholl ....has described, compellingly, a long suicide" ignores the sarcoma that killed him (a bone cancer), and ignores perhaps that Rimbaud was perhaps simply seeking a refuge far from Paris etc., rather than indulging in a long-drawn-out suicide.

So: I dunno which book. I should have bought it when I saw it, but if I did that all the time, I would have 30,000 books instead of only 4,200, and I would not have anything else, including a computer to type out this confession of ignorance on.

[Roland98]

And she's ordered and on her way. Judging from the blurbs and reviews, it's a great read. Thanks, TomJoe.

I was also highly amused to see this in the sponsored links section:
http://www.freethought-forum.com/images/germs.jpg

Quite ironic, I thought, particularly in light of a discussion we once had (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=284) on the dangers of obsessive germ avoidance.

Dang it, all my micro books are at work, but if that's the one I'm thinking about, it's a good read but not exactly accurate. Good for a layperson but makes a microbiologist want to pull her hair out. I'll check next time I get to the office to make sure I'm dissing the right book, though. ;)