Girolamo Fracastoro y la invención de la sífilis

Abstract

Girolamo Fracastoro wrote two works on syphilis: his famous poem, in which he gave a name to the disease, and a prose treatise. From the comparison of these works, in this paper we have identified the combination of several approaches as main characteristic of his description. On the one hand Fracastoro followed the classical medical explanation that emphasized the corruption of the air in order to explain the origins of the disease. On the other hand, when referring to the forms of contagion, he stated clearly that the disease is contracted by direct contact with an infected person. It is possible then to talk of the "invention" of syphilis by Fracastoro since he combined the information empirically collected, with the renaissance medical traditional perspective.

A morning with Louis Pasteur: a short history of the “clean hands”

“…Indeed, for these reasons, physicians and scientists continued to seek ways to prevent infectious diseases. In the 16th century (1546), the Italian physician, mathematician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) released and expanded the "germ theory" 5 . He stated that tiny particles (spores) were the cause of infectious diseases, and that these particles could transmit infections by direct or indirect contact, or even without contact over long distances.…”

El niño con enfermedades infecciosas en las artes visuales: pintura

“…En 1530 publicó, inspirado en una historia de Ovidio, el poema "Syphilis sive de morbo gallico libri tres" (Los tres libros de la sífilis o el mal francés). Es aquí donde acuñó el nombre con el cual se conoce actualmente esta enfermedad 28 .…”

Neurosyphilis in Psychiatric Settings: Three Case Reports

“…Treponema pallidum ve sifiliz hastalığı ilişkisi, Schaudinn ve Hoffman tarafından sekonder lezyonlardan alınan sürüntülerde giemsa boyamada spiroketlerin görül-mesiyle tanımlanmıştır (Echeverría 2010). Penisilinin keşfi ve tedavide kullanımıyla başarı elde edilebilmiş, böylece hastalığın görülme sıklığında dramatik bir düşüş sağlanabilmiş-tir.…”