As these Stone Men are highly feared as sources of the disease, greyscale appears to be contagious for the entire duration of infection, from the development of symptoms to near-death. If a person has been exposed to greyscale, but is not yet showing symptoms, they can check for impending infection by pricking their toes and fingers each day.
Once they're no longer able to feel the knife, that's bad news--greyscale infection is likely, as insensitivity to touch is one of the early signs. Once the scaling begins, the victim no longer feels any pain in the affected areas, making the Stone Men essentially invulnerable to pain.
The incubation period of greyscale seems to be very short. As soon as Jorah and Tyrion realize they are safe and the Stone Men are defeated, Jorah rolls up his sleeve and we see that the initial small patch of greyscale has already appeared. Another prominent victim of greyscale, Shireen Baratheon, is thought to have acquired greyscale via contact with a fomite an inanimate object that serves as a vehicle to transmit an infectious agent between people --in her case, a beloved wooden doll clothed in Baratheon House colors from when she was an infant.
Her father, Stannis, implies that this may have been a form of bioterrorism --that Stannis received the doll from a Dornish trader on Dragonstone. He tells his daughter, "No doubt he'd heard of your birth, and assumed new fathers were easy targets" S05E A number of remedies have been proposed to treat greyscale, but none of them are proven effective. Whether fire could be a cure is unclear. Also in A Dance with Dragons , we read of Tyrion's musings on treating greyscale: "He had heard it said that there were three good cures for greyscale: axe and sword and cleaver.
Hacking off afflicted parts did sometimes stop the spread of the disease, Tyrion knew, but not always. Many a man had sacrificed one arm or foot, only to find the other going grey. Once that happened, hope was gone. Other home remedies, such as cleansing the infected area with vinegar, are also employed. In fact, Jon Connington, once he realizes he's been infected, soaks his hand in bad wine instead of vinegar, because he believes that if he asks for vinegar, it will be an obvious "tell" that he has the disease.
In the TV series S05E04 , Stannis says to Shireen regarding her infection, "I called in every Maester in this side of the world, every healer, every apothecary. They stopped the disease and saved your life. When Daenerys asks Jorah if there is a cure, he tells her simply that he doesn't know, and she directs him to leave, find one, and return to her.
Largely, those with greyscale are shunned and sent elsewhere, especially to the ruins of Valyria 5 where a whole colony of Stone Men live. Shireen asks Stannis, " Are you ashamed of me, Father? Stannis tells his daughter, "Everyone advised me to send you to the ruins of Valyria to live our your short life with the Stone Men before the sickness spread throughout the castle. I told them all to go to hell. In the books, a wildling named Val sees Shireen, and notes Shireen has a condition they call "the grey death," which is always fatal in children--because they're given either hemlock, a pillow, or a blade rather than be allowed to live.
Tyrion quips to Varys that prayer isn't any more useful in curing greyscale than is trying to dance away the plague. Stannis Baratheon explains to his daughter Shireen how she contracted greyscale as an infant, from an infected doll that he bought from a passing merchant ship from Dorne.
By the time they burned the doll it was too late, and everyone said she would either die from the disease, or worse, live just long enough to become aware of the world before it was taken away from her.
He was told that the best thing to do was to send her off across the Narrow Sea to live out her few years among the Stone Men in the ruins of Valyria.
Stannis, however, refused to accept defeat, and instead brought every maester , healer, and apothecary he could find from both sides of the Narrow Sea to try everything they could to save her. Near-miraculously, the combination of their efforts actually managed to cure her, though the damage it had already done to her face was permanent. Jorah manages to fight them off, but Tyrion is pulled underwater.
When Tyrion wakes up, he finds himself on the shore, saved by Jorah. Unbeknownst to Tyrion, Jorah has been infected with the disease, having been touched on the wrist by one of the stone men. Daario notices Jorah's greyscale developing on his arm. He asks Jorah if he knows what will happen to him; Jorah replies that he knows. However, Daenerys tells Jorah that she has not dismissed him from her service, and gives him one final command - to find a cure and return to her.
While working the rounds in the Citadel , Samwell Tarly is accosted by Jorah Mormont with Greyscale on his arm, asking if Daenerys Targaryen has arrived in Westeros yet. Sam finds a cure to Greyscale, presumably while searching through books in a section of the library available only to fully fledged Maesters, however the procedure is difficult, meticulous, dangerous, and rarely successful, having been forbidden due to many failed attempts and sometimes causing the treating Maester to become infected themselves, however Sam goes ahead and tries to treat Jorah.
The treatment involves Sam separating and cutting away Jorah's infected skin layer with a scalpel and then placing a medicinal herbal ointment plaster on the exposed underlying tissue. This treatment is very painful and life-threatening for the patient due to the debridement of the skin and implied upsetting of the lower tissue.
Such a procedure could cause the patient to die via blood loss or pain-induced shock. The patient's age is also stated to be a factor in treatment, as it's implied that the older the victim is, the less likely that treatment will be successful.
Sam successfully cured Jorah of greyscale earning him a reprimand as well as praise for his quick thinking. According to Kerry Ingram who plays Shireen , originally it took about three hours to apply the full Greyscale scarring makeup to the left side of her face, and about another two and a half hours to take it off.
Martin as well as the cast and crew giving an overview of greyscale and the Stone Men click this link to view. In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, greyscale generally affects children, especially in cold damp climates. As it spreads, it leaves the flesh cracked and flaking, and hard to the touch like stone. The affected hardened areas of skin also turn mottled grey and black, though Shireen's face isn't very discolored in the TV series - she has been cured of the disease, but in the novels the scars and dead tissue left behind are still grey and black.
In Season 5, however, the Stone Men in Essos are actually depicted with grey and black stone-like scarring. According to behind-the-scenes featurettes for the episode "Kill the Boy", apparently this was done to show a contrast between Shireen who had the disease cured years ago, and was only in its earlier stages before it could spread beyond her cheek and people like the Stone Men with very late-stage greyscale, with much worse symptoms.
The disease is most prevalent in the Free Cities , though it is occasionally encountered throughout the rest of Essos and Westeros , even in the isolated lands Beyond the Wall. And as plague-related quarantine regulations took hold, the epidemic of leprosy in Europe was already on the wane. In some places, laws barred those with leprosy from inheriting property, for example. But overall, more recent historical work debunks the idea that complete exclusion from society was the dominant response to leprosy.
One argument, from scholar Carole Rawcliffe, is that the idea was promoted in the 19th century by people — scientists, governing authorities and religious leaders alike — who were looking back at the Middle Ages through the lens of their own time. Secondly, as colonialism spread, Western leaders who encountered the disease in the colonies came to fear that leprosy, which had tapered off in Europe, would return in force.
They misread the medieval evidence to show that the segregation of the sick was a common and effective tack to take, Rawcliffe argues, and that interpretation conveniently meshed with their own 19th-century ideas about germs as well as their interest in forcing the segregation of the sick.
Whatever the origins of the misconception, experts see correcting it as crucial. After all, though medical understanding of leprosy has advanced significantly, the bacterium that causes it does still exist.
As the saga is, after all, just a story, the social and symbolic history history of the disease is perhaps where the comparison holds up best. In medieval literature, says Robert Rouse, who teaches the subject at the University of British Columbia, leprosy is a disease with heavy connotations.
Generally, in the context of Christian morality tales, disease was often linked to sin. And, as a hold-over from classical traditions, leprosy in particular was linked to Venus and thus to venereal sins. In stories like the Middle English romance Amis and Amiloun or the 15th century Scottish The Testament of Cresseid , leprosy is visited on characters after they commit acts of betrayal.
Such an interpretation, Rouse points out, reflects a lack of understanding of a medieval Christian mindset. What on earth could actually cause it? We asked a dermatologist. The signs are unmistakable: Hardened gray skin makes those who suffer unrecognizable to friends and family. They become extremely contagious and must be quarantined. And yet how much do we really know about greyscale , the plague that citizens of Westeros fear but do not yet understand?
Game of Thrones has only revealed a few afflicted patients onscreen, but this handful of cases provides an opportunity to investigate what causes the mysterious illness. We must rely only on what we've seen onscreen or read in the books that Game of Thrones is based on to attempt a diagnosis. Unfortunately, facts on the ground are few.
It remains unclear if any treatments for greyscale are effective, aside from some wizardry. If an infection was limited to certain tissues, excision or debridement — the removal of infected, damaged, or dead tissue could be an effective strategy, assuming infection has not spread to other tissues.
Given the high skin contact contagiousness for greyscale, surgeons would be prudent to wear full protective gear including a full facial mask while performing this procedure safety first, Samwell.
Greyscale must be infectious. Cases were transmitted person to person, and the disease was controlled when affected patients were isolated via quarantine. However, it is difficult to prove the type of infection, though we know transmission is by skin-to-skin contact. Shireen, who never had contact with affected patients, owned a doll that possibly carried the infection.
Greyscale, thus, is extremely contagious, far more so than Ebola which is spread through bodily fluids, usually blood , making greyscale more like anthrax or smallpox. For comparison, anthrax is not spread person to person but instead by contact with the skin or through inhalation. Despite its high contagiousness and fast appearance after contact, as far as we can tell, greyscale progresses slowly. Anthrax and smallpox can kill someone in days, but greyscale is insidious, getting worse over a long period of time, though it may never kill the infected person.
One final word of warning: If isolated, the infectious agent in greyscale would be a bioterrorism risk. Many different kinds of infectious agents cause skin diseases, but in the case of greyscale, only a few types are likely to be the cause. Here are the three most likely to cause problems:.
In Jorah's case, greyscale appeared at the inoculation site within a day, suggesting rapid transmission without penetrating injury. Over time, the infection has continued to spread to adjacent skin and has developed pus under the scales.
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