Umberto Eco - The name of the Rose

[Roger100]

I lately restarted reading "The name of the Rose" from a medical perspective. A teacher in nursery school claimed that the book contains a full description of "siphyllis". All remarks on this point of view are most welcome.

Roger

[Seasider]

It's Syphillis. I wouldn't struggle through the book again...a lot of it was showing off, I thought.

[baaaaadgoatjoke]

It's a very good story. I don't remember any syphillis though..

[PeterL]

That is possible, but syphillis was rare in Europe at that time. The novel, as a whole, is about things being signs, or symbols, of other things, and one of the characters might have been described as ugly because he had tertiary syphillis in addition to being evil.

[OrphanPip]

It's almost 100% certain that venereal syphilis was brought to Europe from South America. Syphilis doesn't begin to be written of in Europe until the 16th century, and it's notably almost always blamed on other European countries (i.e. "The French disease"). It would be anachronistic if that was Eco's intention.

Edit: We know this because genetic analysis shows that the strain of bacterium which causes syphilitis has been found endemic in South America, while the old world pathogenic strain of that bacteria found in Africa does not cause syphilis, but a disease called yaws, an infection of the skin and bones.