Did the Europeans bring syphilis with them, a venereal disease caused by infection with the bacteria Treponema pallidum , or did they catch it from the places they travelled and take it back to Europe? The question, long debated, may finally be settled. Bruce Rothschild, a paleopathologist at the Arthritis Centre of Northeast Ohio, has found convincing evidence that syphilis plagued the US long before the arrival of Columbus. About 687 skeletons from eight different populations in the New World, ranging from 400 to 6,000 years were analysed. Syphilis, primarily left lesions on just two bones in the body: the tibia and fibula