Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Spirochaeta pallida

  • Frederick Delius and his neurological disease

    The life of the English composer Frederick Delius and his tragic encounter with the spirochaeta pallida has been extensively documented. He was born in 1862 in the industrial Yorkshire town of Bradford. His family had come to England from Germany but was originally Dutch, having changed its name in the sixteenth century from Delij or…

  • The men who defeated syphilis

    German zoologist Fritz Schaudinn. Source Fritz Schaudinns, Verlag Leopold Voss, Hamburg und Leipzig 1911. Via Wikimedia. Beginnings The origins of syphilis have been subject to much debate. The disease has been claimed to be thousands of years old and originally to have evolved from yaws. Generally mistaken for leprosy and not recognized as a separate entity,…