Syphilitic Columbus

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

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Experts now believe Christopher Columbus did indeed introduce the scurge of Syphilis to Europe. Competing reports suggested the disease was already widespread in Europe but contemporary researchers say those studies are flawed having found no cases of .the disease before 1492 when the Columbus crew landed in Spain. The first recorded cases were three years later in 1495.

Historians have argued that rudimentary tests in the 15th century would have been unable to differentiate that disease from similar symptoms that could have been around for an earlier extended period.  Skeletons found with syphilitic lesions were strong evidence of the Columbus crews' handiwork of introducing the sickness after their frollics in the West Indies.