Reports From Our Fellows Archives
Fellows Report on Fellowship
From Mad Cows to Christopher Columbus
By Chris Lydgate
Chris Lydgate
Like a lot of fellows, I came to the University of Michigan with a well-laid plan. Mine was to write a book about a sinister neurological disorder named Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Within weeks, this idea sprung a major leak when I discovered that a Pulitzer-prize winner had already written a fabulous book on the subject (oops!). My first instinct was panic. But gradually I came to see this as an opportunity in disguise.
I was fortunate enough to take a course from Marty Pernick on the history of medicine which focused on the devastating epidemiological impact of Columbus’s voyage to the New World. It’s well known that European invaders gave native Americans devastating diseases like smallpox and measles. What’s less well known—and still hotly debated—is whether the Americans returned the favor and gave the Europeans syphilis.
I found myself completely absorbed by this 15th-century public-health debate, and fascinated by the bizarre “cures” that medieval doctors invented to combat this terrifying new disease (one favorite treatment included greasing pox victims with mercurial salve and sticking them in an oven). More peculiar still were the doctors who refused to treat the pox because it was God’s punishment for sin. When I discovered that syphilitic hair loss touched off the 17th-century craze for wigs, I was hooked. I am now working on a book proposal on the history of syphilis, though I try not to talk about it at parties.
Chris Lydgate is assistant news editor at Willamette Week.
Photo by Vince Patton
