“Suddenly a picture is emerging that Treponema was part of core ancestral biome,” says co-author Christina Warinner, an anthropologist at the University of Oklahoma.

Postmortem examination always shows that the Treponema has wrought wide-spread damage in the brain.

The discoverer first called it the "Spirochaete pallidum," but later invented a new name—"Treponema pallidum"—by which it is at present generally known.