When stigma sticks.

Byline: Zarrar Khuhro

HERE'S a funny story about syphilis: when this venereal disease came to Europe from the 'New World' along with Columbus' sailors, it cut a swathe of death and disfigurement across the continent earning itself the title of the Great Pox. Since it quickly became evident that it spread through sexual contact, the stigma carried by this disease became all the greater and so did the desire to want to have absolutely nothing to do with it on a national level. The first written notes on syphilis come from an Italian doctor named Nicolo Squillaci who in 1495 wrote: 'Nothing could be more serious than this curse, this barbarian poison.'

The use of 'barbarian' is interesting as it indicates a desire to remove one's own country and people from the list of 'immoral' culprits, and in fact to ascribe such foul deviancy to others. Thus, in Italy, syphilis was referred to as the 'French disease', an appellation eagerly adopted by the British and Germans as well. The French were having none of this, and counter-named it the 'Neapolitan disease', implying that it came through Italian sailors. For the Portuguese, Danish and much of North Africa it was the 'Spanish disease'.

The further east you went, the more age-old regional rivalries came into play, with the Polish calling it the 'German disease', the Russians calling it the 'Polish disease' and the Turks calling it the 'Christian disease'. In this part of the world, Muslims called it the 'Hindu disease' while the Hindus naturally called it the 'Muslim disease'... though both also agreed it was very much a European disease.

The point of this rather long story is that no one loves or wants to own a virulent and deadly disease, and that stigma of infection is such that we will go to great lengths to avoid any association, especially by name, when it comes to a disease that spreads like syphilis does.

Naming a disease in the 'old' manner almost always led to stigma.

There is a reason that Covid-19 has a far less evocative title than the plagues of the past, which usually contained the name of a place, an animal or even a community or subculture, and that is because of a conscious decision by the World Health Organisation to avoid 'references to a specific geographical location, animal species or group of people', when it comes to naming diseases.

There's good reason for that, as naming a disease in the 'old' manner almost always led to stigma and discrimination. Swine flu, for example...

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