Who would have thought it? A cuddly toy in the shape of a virus! These cuddly characters are incredibly endearing and educational too. Each one comes with a detailed scientific description and photograph of what he looks like under the microscope, along with medical tips on how to avoid picking up these bugs in daily life. Children seem to be totally fascinated by them, and it really helps when explaining all about why they are feeling poorly. The perfect gift to accompany a Get Well card. Also a brilliant present for medical students, doctors and nurses etc. You will soon understand why they are becoming amazingly popular! Start collecting now. FACTS: The pox (or Great Pox, as distinguished from the 'lesser' poxes such as chickenpox and smallpox) burst onto the historical scene in a 1494 epidemic that occured in the French army, then fighting in Naples. The Italians promptly called it the French disease. The French called it the Italian (or Neapolitan) disease. As there were Spanish soldiers serving in the French army - recently returned from the New World, where some hypothesize the disease originated - some dubbed it the Spanish disease. As it spread across Europe, it became the Portuguese disease, the Polish disease and the Russian disease and so on. (The mane 'syphillis' comes much later from a shepherd cursed by Apollo in a 1530 poem by Italian physician Girolamo Fracastoro.) Why was the credit for the pox shared so generously? Well, after an incubation period of several weeks to several months, chancres ('shan-kers') appear on the victim's body. These sores persist for a month or so and are generally followed by a skin rash and weeks or months of flu like symptoms (during which period the disease is most contagious) A weeks-to-decades-long latency period follows and then the infamous syphillitic degeneration: Spinal deformities causing a shuffled walk, cardiovascular damage causing 'de Musset's sign' (the head-bobbing first observed in Parisian prostitutes), and brain damage culminating an insanity and death. Early treatments such as mercury and arsenic have given way to effective cures such as penicillin and azithromycin, greatly reducing the disease's prevalence. Nevertheless, resistant strains are starting to emerge. As syphillis infections increase the risk of incurable HIV infections by up to five times, this international microbe of mystery remains a significant public health hazzard.