Syphilis is a type of sexually transmitted infection that is caused by a type of bacteria known as Treponema Pallidum. One of the first signs of syphilis is a small and painless sore, which can appear in sexual organs, rectum, or inside the mouth. The sore is not always visible, so people do not notice it right away.

3 Different stages of syphilis infection

Syphilis infection has 4 stages, which are,

• Primary
• Secondary
• Latent
• Tertiary

Syphilis is more infectious at the first two stages, so if you think you have the infection, go to your nearest clinic and ask your doctor to do a syphilis test

.

Primary stage

The primary stage comes after 3-4 weeks after a person gets affected by the bacteria. In this case, the sore will appear in one or several places and it can take up to 10 to 90 days for the sore to appear.

Secondary stage

At the secondary stage, the patient may find skin rashes along with sores. Though the rashes won’t itch, usually found on the palms and soles, it can also appear at any part of the body.

At the secondary stage, you may see several other symptoms, like

• Headache
• Swollen lymph nodes
• Fatigue
• Fever
• Sudden weight loss
• Hair loss
• Joint pain

Latent stage

The third stage is called the latent stage, where the primary and secondary symptoms will completely disappear, but the bacteria will remain in the body.

Tertiary stage

Only the people who didn’t receive any kind of treatment or didn’t go for the diagnosis will enter in this stage.

Some of the impacts of tertiary syphilis are,

• Blindness
• Deafness
• Mental illness
• Memory loss
• Soft tissue and bone destruction
• May become prone to stroke or meningitis
• Heart disease

Syphilis diagnosis

When you will go to the doctor to get diagnosed for syphilis, they will take your blood samples and will conduct a physical examination. If a sore is there, the doctor might take some sample as well to check if syphilis bacteria present or not.

If your doctor encounters that you are suffering from nervous system problems for tertiary syphilis, they may prescribe a lumbar puncture. The process is conducted to take a spinal fluid sample to see if it is syphilis or anything else.

You can check for syphilis treatment during pregnancy to be sure if the bacteria present in your body or not. Earlier detection may help the female to save the fetus from infection, which can cause severe brain damage to the newborn.

Syphilis treatment

Penicillin injection is used to treat primary and secondary syphilis. Penicillin is an effective antibiotic for curing syphilis, but there are several who are allergic to antibiotics and they can use the following alternatives,

• Doxycycline
• Azithromycin
• Ceftriaxone
  
  

During the treatment, try to stay away from any sexual activities with your partner or anyone. The doctor will tell you when it will be the right time, but until then don’t do it. This way, you may stop the infection from spreading while getting healthier.

People with syphilis have more chances of contracting HIV or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. If you have the sore, it will be easier from the virus to enter your system. In such cases, the doctor might prescribe you pre or post exposure prophylaxis HIV. 

The following measures can be taken to prevent syphilis:

• Use condoms during sex
• Don’t share sex toys
• Go for STI screening with your partner before having an intercourse

Warning: I'm about to go a bit link crazed. Specifically I'm dragging you in to what happens once I start googling and find things that interest me. (Translation: what I do on the internet at any time, on a daily basis.) Another warning, here's what I edited out of title of this post: May Contain Testicles, Teeth Removal from a Saint, A Cephalophore Reference and Tomb Artwork of a Famous Juggler. That was a bit too long.

Back in this post I told about rescuing this book - A Traveller in Southern Italy - from my family's Off To The Used Bookstore pile. I actually linked the wrong book - it's A Traveller in Italy - which makes a difference, because most of this book is about northern Italy. I'm totally not reading it...not really. ...Ok, not much. I do have at least a few examples of the problematic author I talked about in the last post - but that's to be in the review.

More interesting - for blogging purposes - is that what I have read has led to some really fun google searches for more about the country and the history. Of course I have quotes and examples! [Note: not enough skeletons in the book so far. I like my travel stories with skeletons, ghost stories, and a few ruins here and there. Also libraries. You'll note there is a link to some skeletons in artwork below, because that's just how my google searches lead me.]

The quote that started it on page 149 (but again, I'm not really reading this), about a chapel in the city of Bergamo, Italy:

"The gem of Bergamo is the building next to the church: the chapel to the memory of [Bartolomeo] Colleoni with money left by him for this purpose in his will. It was built at the beginning of the Renaissance, when architects erected the usual mediaeval church with a rose window and an open arcade, but, to be classically fashionable, covered it with medallions of ancient heroes strangely contrasted with scenes from holy writ. ...

...In another part of the little chapel is Medea, Colleoni's favorite daughter, carved in white marble, who died seven years before her father. She was not a great beauty, and the fashion of plucking the hair high upon the forehead did not suit her. Nevertheless she lives again in the resurrective art of sculpture in a marble gown of figured brocade, her head upon a tasselled pillow. Her delicate, intelligent face, and her slender neck, remain one of the memories of Bergamo."

It seemed a little odd (and insulting) to toss in that part about Medea not being a great beauty, because that's not the way other tourists describe her statue (that I've read so far, anyway). That's one of the many examples of the author using a tone which is...well, I don't much like the guy.

But I did want to see what these places look like, especially to find out more about the classical heroes bit, because that's vague. What I found was that there's a lot of interesting detail that A Traveller in Italy has left out - though of course that's after I've read many web pages of information.
 

Wikipedia page for the chapel: Cappella Colleoni, which has the following information about the art:

"Over the main portal is a rose window, flanked by two medallions portraying Julius Caesar and Trajan. The upper part of the basement has nine plaques with reliefs of Biblical stories, and four bas-reliefs with Hercules's deeds. The four pilasters of the windows flanking the portal are surmounted by statues of the Virtues."

What that doesn't tell you is that the reason Hercules was used was because supposedly Bartolomeo Colleoni felt he was a descendent of Hercules - in a sort of "I'm like him!" way instead of actual ancestry. I've only read bits about Colleoni online so far, so take that with a grain of salt.

There don't seem to be any photos of Medea's marble tomb-statue - here's an old black and white image on Pinterest, and the chapel's wikipedia page has something similar. This is probably due to restrictions on photographs inside the chapel.

What many sources online seem to agree on is that the Colleoni coat of arms has three testicles on it - in part as a joke because the Italian word for testicles (coglioni) sounds like Colleoni - and also because apparently Bartolomeo went around telling people he had three. Which is a real condition, but you can also imagine the type of person that would want to brag about this.

Google will now have forever in its files that I searched for Colleoni, coat of arms, and testicles. Fun, huh? I'll let you try that link to find out more - and I didn't have any one resource on this, it seems common knowledge. Of course it could be a bit of folklore always told to tourists - but then there is that coat of arms. [links: Time Out Venice, Veneto Inside, quote from book on Venice via Google books, etc. - keep reading, I link to a photo of that coat of arms...]

Ouch, as of 9/20/2013 the ebook price on this at Amazon is $39.46. This is now going on my list of Wow Really? I Must Keep an Eye On This books with wackadoodle prices. (2008 book, Publisher: Praeger)