Sexually Transmitted Diseases

STDs. Where did they come from? Where did they go? Generally, we’re not too sure. There’s a whole stigma attached to STDs, so, we try not to talk or think about them. But understanding them is pretty important for sexual health and is something we need to stop avoiding. So, instead of sharing relevant information, I’m going to be answering the question you maybe never asked: where the hell did STDs come from? You’re not born with them (some STDs can be transferred if a mother is infected during childbirth), but you get them from other people. They had to start somewhere, so today we’re going to figure this out, at least as much as science has figured out.

Herpes

This is the classic, probably the first STD you have ever heard of. And it’s probably the only one that’s made you overanalyse a lip pimple or ulcer. Research from Oxford and Cambridge university found that it all started a hefty time ago (somewhere between 1.4 million and 3 million years ago), when humans were first evolving from a life in tree as a chimp, into the hairless creatures we are today. As we evolved from chimpanzees, we initially had an immunity from herpes.

While the specific origin of herpes is still a wee bit ambiguous, as with most of life's big questions, we know that it came from a species that was between a human and a chimpanzee, likey one called a Parathropus boisei. As they found, this species was ‘attracted’ to both humans and chimpanzees. From here, Cambridge University were able to track the disease back to Tanzania, confirming that herpes did in fact come from a species which was most likely the Parathropus boisei, but may have been another species like this (now extinct of course). The assumption is that it started from the Parathropus boisei consuming chimpanzee meat.

Gonorrhea

Gonorrhea may be one of the world's oldest STDs. While we haven’t actually found its initial origins, it does have a really interesting history. Scientists and historians have seen records of it possibly going back to 2600 BC when a disease similar to it (which many assume was in fact gonorrhea) was described by Huang Ti, a Chinese Emperor. It appeared throughout history ever since, until around 130-200 AD, when a Greek physician named the disease ‘gonorrhea’; ‘gono’ meaning seed and ‘rhea’ meaning flow.

From here, medieval parliaments (around 1100s - 1200s) began passing laws in an attempt to stamp out the disease (yeah, sounds like the 2020s). Wars were generally associated with STDs, with Roman soldiers suffering from gonorrhea, and the disease even taking many, many lives during the Crimean War. We didn’t know the difference between gonorrhea and syphilis until the nineteenth century when a scientist studied a good 2500 patients and categorised both of them.

Chlamydia

For being the most known and possibly most common STD, we know very little about chlamydia’s origin. It was first found in 1907, and there are nine different species in its family, which aren’t all STDs. It took until the 1970s for it to first be recognised as an STD. By the 90s there were around 34,000 new diagnoses. The bacteria that chlamydia evolved from can be traced back 700 million years. But really that’s all that can be found about its origins. Other than that, regardless of being so widespread, and recent, there’s not much that is confirmed.

Syphillus

This may be one of history's most devastating STDs, potentially going beyond that as one of the most devastating diseases prior to our good friend penicillin. As quoted by a Dutch scholar, Desiderius Erasmus in 1520:

“If I were asked which is the most destructive of all diseases I should unhesitatingly reply, it is that which for some years has been raging with impunity … What contagion does thus invade the whole body, so much resist medical art, becomes inoculated so readily, and so cruelly tortures the patient?”

There are three hypotheses around where it started. The first is called the pre-Colombian hypothesis. The idea is that there were a couple of diseases in the Afro-Asian zone from 15,000 BC to 10,000 BC from mutations and animal reservoirs. From here it’s believed that treponemas, which are parasitic bacteria, mixed with climate change, led to the formation of ‘endemic syhpillus’: not an STD. This was up until roughly 3000 BC when it popped up as STD or venereal syphilis in South-Western Asia, which eventually spread to most of the rest of the world, growing in intensity from mutation until it became what it was in the fifteenth century.

The second theory is the unitarian hypothesis, which is similar to the prior. The idea around this one is that the diseases that the previous hypothesis believes mutated into syphilis, were actually varients of the same disease. Theoretically, the only differences between these diseases are due to climate and geography, alongside cultural developments in the affected areas. Yaws, a really nasty disease, was believed to evolve into endemic syphilis in areas in which personal hygiene was poor, and venereal syphilis in hygienic societies.

This brings us to the Colombian theory, which may be the most popular theory. This hypothesis suggests that Colombus' fleet were the ones who spread the disease globally. Two documents found by men on Colombus’ fleet described that firstly, the disease already had treatments found by indigenous populations and that the condition began in the Galápagos Islands off South America. From here it’s believed his fleet caught the disease and brought it to the rest of the world.

HIV

Surprise! It’s another one from chimps, they’re bringing us all the plotlines that nobody asked for. This one is nowhere near as old as the other homies we’ve just discussed, and dates only as far back to the 1800s. What this means, is while this a much less interesting origin story, it’s actually proven, instead of being widely ambiguous or having multiple hypotheses. The disease started in Central Africa in chimpanzees, and the first ever case in humans was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1959. It’s believed that in this instance, it transferred from the hunting of the chimpanzees from blood transfer. HIV of course is what causes AIDs, and eventually led to the devastating AIDs epidemic which began in the 70s.

Crabs

Last but not least, we have crabs, sometimes known as pubic lice. This one comes from gorillas, around three million years ago. This one isn’t necessarily from gorilla sex but could be from a range of things that haven’t actually been proven. These kinds of lice aren’t the lice you’re used to in school that are all up in your hair, gorillas can’t actually get these. The idea is like with chimpanzees, the hunting and scavenging of gorillas was likely what spread the disease to us.

Those are the big guys, but there’s plenty of other STDs with their own histories. The moral of the story is to keep your bodily fluids away from animals.