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LESSONS FROM THE MUSEUM

Anatomical and biochemical evidence for Treponema pallidum in a 19th to early twentieth century skeletal cadaver James S. Henkel 1 & Joel Davis 2 & Ned Farley 3 Accepted: 4 March 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract This report summarizes findings relating to the biochemical and skeletal evidence for Treponema pallidum in an unusually old case of congenital syphilis. In 1951, the Milwaukee Public Museum acquired skeletal remains from the Surgical School of Marquette University. The male was identified as a 60–65-year-old, that was suffering from congenital syphilis. His remains are now part of the anthropological collections of Wisconsin Lutheran College (Milwaukee, Wisconsin). Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) and Rapid Plasma Reagin (RPR) tests were used to verify the presence of the bacteria-generated antibodies, while mass spectrometry testing provided indirect evidence for the historical treatment of the disease. Notably, antibody detection in human remains of this age is rare. These initial results support what is known of syphilis and its treatment prior to the wide scale, clinical use of penicillin therapy, and describe evidence for long-term skeletal symptoms of congenital syphilis in centuryold human remains. Keywords Cadaver . Museum collection . VDRL . RPR . Pathology . Syphilis . Mercury

Introduction This report describes skeletal evidence associated with exposure to the Treponema pallidum bacterium. Additionally, it reports on the findings of two independent studies of arterial blood and sera drawn from a skeletonized cadaver (ID B0086). The remains were acquired by the Department of Anthropology at Wisconsin Lutheran College —initially, these were curated by the Milwaukee Public Museum (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) who received the cadaver from the Surgical School of Marquette University in 1951. The surgical school was part of a county healthcare system (c.1850–1965) that included a hospital and an asylum. Treponema pallidum ssp. pallidum (also known as The Pox) is a spiral-shaped bacteria defined as a spirochete [1]. It

* James S. Henkel [email protected] 1

Biology Department, Wisconsin Lutheran College, Generac Hall, 8800 W Bluemound Rd, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA

2

Chemistry Department, Wisconsin Lutheran College, Generac Hall, 8800 W Bluemound Rd, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA

3

Anthropology Department, Wisconsin Lutheran College, Generac Hall, 8800 W Bluemound Rd, Milwaukee, WI 53226, USA

is normally acquired by one of two methods, either during sexual contact or maternally, at or before birth. After the initial infection, there is an incubation period of 9 to 90 days before visible symptoms develop in the form of a painless ulcerative lesion (termed a chancre) on the epithelium, usually at the site of infection [2]. One to two months after the primary ulcer appearance, symptoms of secondary syphilis may occur, such as a full-body rash, sores, muscle aches, fever, swollen lymph nodes and kidney damage. Symptoms of se

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