Penicillin was discovered in 1928, and effectiveness of treatment with penicillin was confirmed in trials in 1943, at which time it became the main treatment.Many famous historical figures, including Franz Schubert, Arthur Schopenhauer, Édouard Manet, Charles Baudelaire, and Guy de Maupassant are believed to have had the disease. Friedrich Nietzsche was long believed to have gone mad as a result of tertiary syphilis, but that diagnosis has recently come into question. Arts and literature
The earliest known depiction of an individual with syphilis is Albrecht Dürers Syphilitic Man, a woodcut believed to represent a Landsknecht, a Northern European mercenary. The myth of the femme fatale or "poison women" of the 19th century is believed to be partly derived from the devastation of syphilis, with classic examples in literature including John Keats "La Belle Dame sans Merci".The Flemish artist Stradanus designed a print called Preparation and Use of Guayaco for Treating Syphilis, a scene of a wealthy man receiving treatment for syphilis with the tropical wood guaiacum sometime around 1590. Tuskegee and Guatemala studies
The "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male"  was an infamous, unethical and racist clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service.
Since 2000, rates of syphilis have been increasing in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and Europe, primarily among men who have sex with men. Rates of syphilis among US women have remained stable during this time, while rates among UK women have increased, but at a rate less than that of men. Increased rates among heterosexuals have occurred in China and Russia since the 1990s. This has been attributed to unsafe sexual practices, such as sexual promiscuity, prostitution, and decreasing use of barrier protection.Left untreated, it has a mortality rate of 8% to 58%, with a greater death rate among males. The symptoms of syphilis have become less severe over the 19th and 20th centuries, in part due to widespread availability of effective treatment, and partly due to virulence of the bacteria. With early treatment, few complications result. Syphilis increases the risk of HIV transmission by two to five times, and coinfection is common (30–60% in some urban centers). In 2015, Cuba became the first country to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of syphilis. History
The origin of syphilis is disputed. Syphilis was present in the Americas before European contact, and it may have been carried from the Americas to Europe by the returning crewmen from Christopher Columbuss voyage to the Americas, or it may have existed in Europe previously but gone unrecognized until shortly after Columbuss return. These are the Columbian and pre-Columbian hypotheses, respectively.