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Syphilis, Gonorrhoea, Leprosy, and Yaws In SYPHILIS, GONORRHOEA, biased in favour of the nineteenth and LEPROSY AND YAWS IN twentieth centuries. THE INDONESIAN We are, therefore, not well-informed about ARCHIPELAGO, 1500-1950 the new diseases that might have accompanied the Europeans who came to 1 the region in ever increasing numbers Peter Boomgaard from around 1500. Thus, Southeast Asia is hardly mentioned in the ‘Columbian Abstract exchange’ stories in which other areas of the globe figure so prominently. I am referring to the Americas in the sixteenth This paper dexamines the history of and seventeenth centuries and the Pacific sexually transmitted diseases in Southeast in the eighteenth century, where ‘new’ Asia and explores the origins of venereal diseases, arriving with the European disease, specifically syphilis and conquerors or explorers, led to a dramatic gonorrhoea, in the region. The arrival of drop in population numbers. Although this new diseases that accompanied Europeans view is now generally accepted, the new from about 1500, is a subject that scholars orthodoxy is of a relatively recent date have largely ignored in favour of the 19th (e.g. Crosby 1972). and 20th centuries. While concentrating on the Indonesian archipelago, the paper also In this paper, I explore the question of considers to other parts of Southeast Asia whether there are indications that to investigate the impact of syphilis and something similar happened in the area we gonorrhoea on the rate of population now call Indonesia, but I cast my net a bit growth in the region. Unlike gonorrhoea, wider and occasionally refer to other parts which was present before the arrival of of Asia as well. I also look at the debate on Europeans, syphilis was a new disease the origins of syphilis in Europe, in order whose introduction by the Portuguese had to see whether it can shed some light on lethal consequences. Possibly, the what happened in Asia, and, the other way propagation of Islam and Christianity in around, whether the Asian story has some island Southeast Asia after 1500 and of bearing on current thought about the Buddhism in mainland Southeast Asia, origins of ‘venereal’ syphilis. were important mitigating factors in checking the spread of syphilis. In this story, syphilis, gonorrhoea, leprosy and yaws, some of them rather unlikely Introduction bedfellows, all play a role, but my main arguments gravitate around syphilis and Southeast Asia is not well represented in yaws. the international medical historical literature of the last two decades. Some of these diseases are well-known to Moreover, the existing literature is heavily the general public, infamous even, although now less so than, say, a century ago, but other ones might need an 1 Professor, Royal Netherlands Institute of introduction. Syphilis (‘pox’) and Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies at gonorrhoea (‘clap’) are worldwide known Leiden (KITLV) and University of Amsterdam Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 06:34:37PM via free access Syphilis, Gonorrhoea, Leprosy and Yaws in the Indonesian Archipelago, 1500-1950 sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), present contribution, therefore, had to be although they are now largely relegated to based almost entirely on information about an existence in the shadow of HIV/AIDS.2 STDs found in collections of pre-World Leprosy, sometimes called Hansen’s War Two books and articles. disease, is an illness now only to be found in tropical countries, although not so long In 1941, roughly between 10 to 15% of the ago it was also encountered in the population of Java, Indonesia’s most temperate zone. It is not an STD, but it populous island then and now, was shares some of their symptoms. Yaws, not thought to be suffering from venereal an STD either, is probably the least known diseases (VD), an estimated figure that of the illnesses mentioned here. It is also a was believed to be increasing (Simons tropical disease, and has probably always 1941). been one. It shares many symptoms with syphilis, and the two diseases have What is unclear, however, is the sometimes been confused. However, in proportion of the various individual STDs historical times in Indonesia, yaws was within the total group that was affected often just a mild skin disease, something with these illnesses. In 1920, of the 3,722 that children caught from each other, after patients of the Burgerlijk Ziekenhuis which they were immune for life. (civilian hospital) in Bandung, 427 or 11.5%, had STDs. This was more or less equally divided between syphilis, STDs in Indonesian history gonorrhoea, and what was then called ulcus molle (soft chancre; chancroid) (Tio We have not been spoiled with recent 1941: 30). It is perhaps not permissible to studies on STDs in Indonesian history. In generalize these hospital findings over the fact, beside a short article on mythical total population of Java at that time, stories about Indonesian rulers of times although I am inclined to believe that past with STDs or other skin diseases given such proportions no single disease (Josselin de Jong 1986), and an article on was strongly dominant. Thus, these STDs in Indonesia since 1811 (Sterren et statistics might be assumed to give us a al. 1997), there is, to my knowledge, rough idea of the situation in Java at the nothing written on this topic after c. 1940. end of the period we are dealing with in But even then, monographs specifically this paper. dedicated to the history of STDs in Indonesia were absent, and we have to However, I would not be willing to extend make do with more or less extended this generalization over the whole of the passages in general medical histories of Indonesian Archipelago, given the the Indonesian Archipelago, or in general enormous differences between the various studies on syphilis or yaws in Indonesia regions in terms of culture, religion, (Mulder 1923, Hermans 1928, Schoute economic development (including 1929, Schoute 1935, Tio 1941). The urbanization and industrialization), and accessibility to outsiders. 2 In the older sources, the term ‘pox’ (also Soft chancres were not recognized as a French pox or Italian pox) almost always refers disease separate from syphilis (with its to syphilis, the ‘big pox’, as opposed to indurated chancres) until the 1850s, and smallpox. 21 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 06:34:37PM via free access MANUSYA: Journal of Humanities, Special Issue No.14, 2007 there is not much information to be found likely that the disease also came to the about this illness in the historical record region via the overland route, through regarding Indonesia. Therefore, in this Turkey and Persia. In 1498 it had reached contribution they can play no further role, Azerbaijan, where it has spread in 1501. even if they probably represented a We know that the Turks called it the considerable proportion of all STDs, at Christian disease, and the Persians called it least in Java, around 1920. the Turkish disease, so it is clear whence it came and where it went. Neither will this study deal with what the Dutch sources called venerisch granuloom The people of coastal India called it (granuloma venereum), nowadays known phirangi roga (or firanga roga), the as inguinal granuloma or Donovanosis. disease of the Franks, a term often The disease led to a drop in certain referring to Europeans in general, but at populations in southern New Guinea, later this early stage mainly to the Portuguese, called Irian and now Papua. It was treated the first Europeans to come to Asia in successfully by Dutch physicians in the large numbers. The same term was used 1920s and 30s, but was apparently by the people of the nearby Maldives, and unknown outside the region, even in the the Portuguese were also held responsible adjacent Moluccas. After the War in the for the arrival of syphilis in Sri Lanka. Pacific, soldiers serving in New Guinea must have introduced it in Java The arrival of syphilis on the Malay (Jaarverslag 1922: 27-9, Kopstein 1926: Peninsula is mentioned but not dated, but 59, Meulen 1950). It is of course an it is also associated with the Portuguese, interesting question how such a disease who conquered Malacca in 1511. could have continued to exist in isolation However, syphilis was by then spreading for so long, although there had been more quickly than the Portuguese frequent contacts between New Guinea presence: the disease arrived in Canton and the Indonesian Archipelago for (hence the term Canton rash or Canton centuries, a point to which I return shortly. ulcers) between 1504 and 1506, about 15 To my knowledge, nothing is known about years before the Portuguese. Syphilis the disease prior to 1900. therefore, could very well have reached Malacca before 1511 too. In 1505, or, Therefore, the only STDs to be dealt with according to another source, 1512, syphilis in this paper are gonorrhoea and syphilis. landed in Japan, where the disease was The reason for the inclusion of two non- called Chinese ulcers, but also Portuguese STDs – leprosy and yaws – will become disease (Gray and Bell 1887-90, I: 182, clear presently. Jeanselme 1934, Huard 1956, Sigerist 1961: 132, Temple 1970: 63, McNeill 1979: 218, Uragoda 1987: 55, Quétel Syphilis in Asia 1992: 51-2, Nikiforuk 1993: 91, Kohn 2001: 186). That syphilis was a new disease in Asia European observers who came to the around 1500 appears to be undisputed. It region about a century later were struck by may have reached India already with the the fact that having syphilis “is no mark of first Portuguese fleet, in 1498, and by shame there, nor any disgrace to have had 1504/5 it had already spread. It seems 22 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 06:34:37PM via free access Syphilis, Gonorrhoea, Leprosy and Yaws in the Indonesian Archipelago, 1500-1950 it several times: they even make boast of which, as we saw earlier, was attributed to it.” It was cured with radix china or chinae a merciful god.
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