Brazil wood from you guessed it Brazil was the first widespread cure all for the disease that was ravaging Europe's people. It was enlightenment thinking that the cure for many alignments came from the same place the disease did. Brazil wood was used to dye cloth red in Europe but it quickly became a folk cure for syphilis because it was from the new world were syphilis was thought to have originated. Now this was one of the folk cures each culture had their own. At one point it was called the French disease because Europeans thought it came from France. So at some points people may have looked to herbs that only grew in France. There was a panic because the disease was killing many and causing many to be infertile which messed with Europe's way of passing on property since nobles and landowners had trouble having kids. And when people panic they jump at any cure they could find including eating Brazil wood, taking mercury or anything they heard off thought the grape vine that promised to save their lives.