Well it’s the end of the year now, and next semester most things will be the same. Except this column, it probably won’t exist anymore. Unless I get a ton of objections I will stop doing this column, and so I leave you with two very strange things. The word of the week should help you out over summer vacation, especially during the Fourth of July… The subject probably won’t help too much, but it should be an interesting read.ConflagrationA conflagration is basically a very large fire. The word, like many more complex words in the English language, comes from Latin, Conflagrare, according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary. It often is used in a more civilian context, but it is more commonly used in a military context to refer to an incredibly huge explosion. Used in a sentence, “The conflagration from the fireworks left my jaw on the floor.”

Syphilis is a sexual transmitted disease that came before and was as deadly as AIDS, according to an article by Timothy Sexton called Syphilis: History, Symptoms and Treatment. The disease when it is first contracted manifests as a lesion on the area of infection. In the second stage the disease spreads to the hands and feet as a collection of brown sores.Eventually the disease can spread to the nervous system or the cardiovascular system causing heart attacks through scarring. If caught the disease can be stopped relatively easily through penicillin. This discovery didn’t actually come about though until 1909 with the work of Paul Ehrlich. However, there was no need for this discovery until around 1492.If that date sounds familiar that is because it is the date that Christopher Columbus first sailed to the Americas. It is believed to have been brought over as a non venereal infection called Yaws according to a New York Times article on the subject. The infection then mutated into syphilis sometime after it reached the European continent, and spread as the ‘pox’.The disease quickly spread over the European continent due to the frequent wars between European countries, and the prostitutes who followed those armies according to a database called the History of Plagues.Due to the exploration of the world at the time the disease quickly spread to far away places, like India and even Japan! This plague seemed to strike down anyone with its effects from peasants to popes and kings. In a very similar reaction as to AIDS, the Catholic church called for abstinence while others spoke of divine punishment, according to a Science blogging article on syphilis.Currently syphilis is not a particularly dangerous STD, especially when compared with AIDS, but currently scientists are finding strains of syphilis which are resistant to antibiotics.(For more info and some pretty gross pictures check out the History of Plagues at http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/bugl/histepi.htm#syph)