French Pox

Kurt Vonnegut used to discuss the lurching old men of his youth, ambulating irregularly about downtown Indianapolis. His wandering examination of the terrifyingly possessed men, mumbling and bumbling in their confusion and discordance, paints a fairly terrifying picture of the disease once known by names varying from the French Pox to the scourge of royalty: Syphilis.

Treponema Palladium, a gram negative spirochete, has brought down rulers and vagabonds, and remains today one of the most prevalent (if slow moving) sexually transmitted disease around. It's readily treatable (simple penicillin does the trick), but if you let it go, it begins to run amok in your cerebellum, corkscrewing its way through the all important cognitive matter. Over years, you slowly go crazy, lose your ability to sense your arms and legs (except for pain and temperature), and develop a series of unsavory skin conditions.

The trick with syphilis is that it spends so much time with no clinically apparent symptoms. (although also decreased chance of catching it). The diagnosis can be tricky because the little spirals are adept at avoiding tests, and the symptoms are erratic and transitory. Perhaps the best (not most effective, just most hilariously named) diagnostic technique for the final stages of syphilis is the the eye exam. A person with late stage syphilis will have normal eye constriction with general eye use (known as accommodation), but not respond to light. This is known as the "prostitute's pupil," although in deference to modern terminology, it has recently been rebranded the Argyll Roberston pupil. Which honestly just makes me associate syphilis with sweaters for some reason (perhaps its because the human race most likely got syphilis in the first place by having inappropriate relations with sheep?)