Who was the Italian poet, physician and astronomer who wrote a play of a venereal disease, and coined the name of the disease?

TabbyTom

Girolamo Fracastoro wrote "Syphilis, sive morbus gallicus" ("Syphilis, or the French disease") in 1530. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Fracastoro Dec 20 06, 1:51 AM

Calley

Ah i thought it was Francesco Maria Grimaldi who coined the word 'diffraction'. Guess not, good goin Tom. Dec 20 06, 2:05 AM

Arpeggionist

So does that mean that syphilis did in fact originate in Europe (as the poem suggests) and not in the Americas? Dec 20 06, 11:17 AM

Baloo55th

Not necessarily. The Italians would call a nasty disease French, just as the English would. And the French would call it English... The poem was written well after the first incidence of syphilis in Europe - the first actual recorded incident having connections to Columbus's crew. Some claim there were pre-voyage cases in Europe, but these are doubtful. http://www.archaeology.org/9701/newsbriefs/syphilis.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis Dec 20 06, 2:08 PM

tragic_flawed

Also an interesting note- King Henry 8th, Francis 1- and many of the royal family had syphilis. Going back to the Roman times, many historians speculate that Nero, Caligula and Heliogabulus may have had syphilis-which lead to their voracious sexual appetites and dementia. Dec 20 06, 3:52 PM

Baloo55th

Trouble with a lot of this delayed post morteming is that most of the bodies are not available for analysis. There are other things that can give symptoms similar to those of syphilis, and diagnosis was rather hazy in those days. For a different example, most of the cases of leprosy then are now believed to be complaints other than Hansen's Disease. The virulence shown in the first outbreak in Naples is that of a 'new' disease. Most diseases come in like ravening beasts, and later settle down to domesticity as resistance builds up - and some of the more virulent microbes don't get passed on because they kill their victim too quickly. The milder ones do get to pass on to other hosts, and this helps to kill off the virulent strains as the antibodies created work on them too. Dec 20 06, 4:30 PM