In 1760 Casanova discovers the limits of his diagnostic powers after contracting a severe case of syphilis from his beloved Renaud, who “gave me a disease, which devoured her interior parts and left no marks outwardly, and was thus all the more dangerous, as the freshness of her complexion seemed to indicate the most ...

What STD has Casanova?

“Thus we thought we would be able to detect the gonococcus on Casanova's pages, since he candidly admitted, in his memoirs, having been infected by gonorrhea in his first sex intercourse at the age of 18 and having suffered from relapses of this sex pathology along his lifetime as a gallant lover.”

Which animal did syphilis come from?

Syphilis also came to humans from cattle or sheep many centuries ago, possibly sexually”. The most recent and deadliest STI to have crossed the barrier separating humans and animals has been HIV, which humans got from the simian version of the virus in chimpanzees.